



*''■ L / - 











■ c 

















:Ji§ 



'ittv'';-( 











Qass 
Book 



Ej^s 



^^55 



THE 

RESOURCES 

OF THE <^ 

OF 

AMERICA; 

OR, 

A VIEW 

OF 

THE AGRICULTURAL, COMMERCIAL, 

MANUFACTURING, FINANCIAL, POLITICAL, LITERARY, 

MORAL AND RELIGIOUS CAPACITY 

AND CHARACTER 

OF THE 

AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
BY JOHN BRISTEB 

COUNSKI,T.OK AT LAW 
AUTBOR OF TEE RESOURCES OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

— -O^I^O- — 



Ev S'e (pxst Kcii o>.£o-fM\ 



PUBLISHED BY JAMES EASTBURN & CO. 

AT THE LITERARY ROOMS, BROADWAY, CORNER. OF 
PINK-STREET. 

AbiaharD Paul, printer. 

1818 






fiouthem District of J^''ew-York, ss. 

BE IT REMKMBERED, that on the seventh day of February, in tlic foitv-secoiid 
ypnr of the Iiidc],endpnce of the United States of America, John Bris/rd, of the 
said district, liath d.posittd in this ollice tlie title of a book, the right whereof lie claims 
R8 Author and Proprietor, in the words following, to wit : 

"The Resources of the United States of America; or, a View of the Agricultural, 
"Commercial, Manufactnring, Financial, Political, Literary, Moral and Religious 
"Capacity and Character of the American People. By John Bristed, Counsellor at 
" Law. Author of tlie Resources of tlie British Kmpire. 

" Ev Jt ^itu u.At txto-crov !" 

In conformity to tlie act of the Congress of the United States, entitled " an Act for the 
encouiaijemtnt of Ltarning, by securing the copies of iMaps, Charts, and Books to the 
authoi^ and proprietors of such copies, during the times iherrin m( ntion.d" And aUo 
to an .Act, entitled "un Act supplementary to an Act, entitled an Art for the incoiirao-e- 
ment of Learning, by .securing the copies of Majjs, Charts, and Books to the authors and 
|iropnetors ot such copies, during the times therein mentioned, and extending the benc- 
Dts tliereof to tlic arts of designing, engraving, and etching historical and other prints. 

JAMKS DILL, 
Clerk qf the Southern District ojW'ew-York. 



DEDICATION, 






TO THE 



CHANCELLOR OF THE STATE OF NEW-YORK. 

SIR, 

Will you permit me to place under your 
protection the following pages, in which it is 
attempted to present a brief outline of the Re- 
sources and Character of a Country, whose public 
weal you have so powerfully upheld by your judi- 
cial talents and learning ; whose private interests 
have been promoted, and whose private relations 
have been uniformly gladdened, by your social 
and domestic virtues ? 

I have the honour to be. 
Sir, 

Your much obliged 

And n^ost obedient servant. 

JOHjy butstej). 

JVew-York, 1818. 



ADVERTISEMENT. 

» ® « 

Towards the close of the year 1809, when the 
result of the battle of Wagramhad convinced the Ame- 
rican public that the continent of Europe was finally 
subdued, and that England alone remained " an easy 
prey to the all-conquering arms of the Great Napoleon,' 
I ventured to oppose the headlong current of popular 
opinion ; and in the " Hints on the JVational Bankruptcy 
of Britain, and on her resources to maintain the present 
contest with France,''"' (afterward republished under 
the title of " Resources of the British Empire,'''') under- 
took to demonstrate that the final destruction of the 
overgrown power of France was to be expected : 
First, from the nature of the French political and mili- 
tary institutions ; Secondly, from the resistance of the 
people of Continental Europe ; and. Thirdly, from the 
resources of the British empire. 

This work was no sooner published than many pro- 
found politicians pronounced the author to be " a vi- 
sionary fanatic, a mere closet recluse, unacquainted with 
men and things, deficient in judgment, and wanting 
common sense;" and persisted, with increased vehe- 
mence, as they inhaled fresh inspirations from the 
" scevi spiracula Ditis,'''' to prophesy that France " would 
soon stretch her sceptre over the whole of Europe, 
plant her tri-coloured flag on the Tower of London, 



VI ADVERTISEMENT. 

and establish a Gallic viceroy in the palace of St. 
James." That controversy, I presume, is now closed, 
by the events of the years 1812, 1813, 1814, and 1815; 
and by the present residence of the Imperial and Royal 
Exile, whom those sagacious statesmen so long wor- 
shipped as the god of their idolatry. 

In the Advertisement to the " Hints on the JVational 
Bankruptcy of Britain^'''' it was said, " the consideration 
of the domestic policy, the foreign relations, the man- 
ners and habits, the laws, religion, morals, literature, 
and science of this very interesting and unparalleled 
country, whose institutions are almost entirely unknown 
to the people of Europe, and not sufficiently understood, 
at least in their remoter consequences, by the general 
body of our own citizens, I shall take up, as soon as I 
have leisure and opportunity to arrange the great mass 
of materials, facts, documents, and state-papers, re- 
specting these United States, with which I am furnished 
by the careful and diligent collection of more than three 
years, aided by the abundant and liberal communica- 
tions of some American gentlemen, who have distin- 
guished themselves as statesmen of the highest order, 
by the zeal, fidelity, industry, and talent, with which 
they have discharged the most arduous political duties, 
both in their own country and in the courts of the most 
powerful European kingdoms." 

More than eight years have now elapsed, since it was 
then proposed to publish a " View of the Resources of 
the United Slates^ Those eight years have added very 
considerably to the bulk and interest of the collection 
then formed ; and the following pages, selected and di- 
gested from the voluminous masses of materials relating 
to our federative Republic, are offered to the reader as 



ADVERTISEMExXT. VU 

an effort to redeem the pledge, given so long since as 
October, 180 J. 

It is not intended, in the present work, to give a sta- 
tistical view of the United States. This has been done 
already, with so much ability and accuracy, by the 
Honourable Mr. Pitkin, a member of Congress from 
Connecticut, that the political economist has only to re- 
sort to his book for ample instruction on the commerce, 
agriculture, manufactures, public debt, revenues, and 
expenditures of the United States. To Mr. Pitkin's 
*' Statistical View^'''' the following pages are much in- 
debted ; and I beg leave to embrace this opportunity 
of presenting to that gentleman my grateful acknow- 
ledgments for his very kind and liberal offer to furnish 
me with his own collection of documents respecting the 
United States; a collection unrivalled in extent and 
value, and containing, in more than a hundred printed 
volumes, besides innumerable manuscripts, all the ne- 
cessary information respecting North America, from her 
earliest settlement ; and, more especially, resn*^cting 
these United States, from their first establishment to 
the present hour. 

The object proposed in the following work, is merely 
to give a brief outline of the physical, intellectual, and 
moral character, capacity, and resources of the United 
States ; with an entire determination to steer clear of 
all undue bias for or against either of the great con- 
tending political parties, which divide, agitate, and go- 
vern this ever-widening Republic. As I have never 
received, nor sought any favour or benefit from any 
one of the numerous parties which have had their day 
of triumph and defeat, in the quick succession, and rapid 
alternations which so peculiarly characterize all the 



VIU ADVERTISEMENT. 

movements of men and things, under our popular insti- 
tutions, I may, perhaps, be permitted to say, in relation 
to those parties, whether dominant or defeated, 

" Tros, Tyriusque mihi nuUo discrimine agetur." 

After a few introductory remarks on the importance 
of a right acquaintance with the resources and cha- 
racter of the United States, and the grievous misrepre- 
sentation of them by European writers, the ^n/ chapter 
exhibits the territorial aspect, population, agriculture, 
and navigable capacities of the United States; the se- 
cond, their commerce, home and foreign ; the third, their 
manufactures; the fourth, their finances; the /i/th^ 
their government, policy, and laws; the sixth, their 
literature, arts, and science ; the seventh, their religion, 
morals, habits, manners, and character. The work is 
concluded by an eye-glance at the present condition of 
Europe, particularly of Spain, France, England, and 
Russia, and the probable consequences of the present 
European coalition to these United States. 

JOHJSr BRISTED. 

JVeW'York, January lith, 1818. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

"Vi^WW- — 

DEDICATION. — Advertisement — general conviction of the 
United States, in 1809, that France would conquer England, v. — 
that conviction opposed by the author then, ibid. — intention, at that 
time, to give a view of the United States, vi. — Mr. Pitkin's Statistics, 
vii. — plan of the present work, ibid. 

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 

Capacity and character of the United States not understood in Eu- 
rope, 1 — their importance, 2 — Atlantic and Western, 3 — misrepre- 
sented by travellers, 4 — as Imlay, Parkinson, Ashe, Jansen, &c. 
S — Brissot's theory of the United States, 6 — Gilbert's theory, 8 — 
books on the United States recommended, 9 — why the present 
work was written, 10. 

CHAPTER I. 

TERRITORY, AGRICULTURE, POPULATION, AJVD JVAVIGABLE 
CAPACITY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Territorial aspect of the United States, 11 — population of the 
United States, and other countries, 15 — rapid growth of the United 
States, 17 — of New-York, Baltimore, Kentucky, New-Orleans, 18 
— foreign emigrants, 20 — salubrity of the United States, 21 — popu- 
lation of the United States ; how raised and distributed, 22 — Vir- 
ginia population, 23— agriculture of the United States, 24 — naviga- 
ble capacities of the United States, 25 — canals may connect the 
whole union, ibid. — their importance, 26 — power of Congress to 
make them, 27 — the Alleghany mountains and their rivers^ 28 — 
communications between the Atlantic rivers, the St. Lawrence, and 
the Lakes, 32 — the New-York canal, 33 — its importance, 34 — ter- 
ritorial capacities of the United States, 35 — works thereon, 36. 

* CHAPTER II. 

COMMERCE OF THE UNITED STATES. 
Anti-commercial theory, 37 — its folly and mischief, 38 — aggregate 
colnmerce of the world ; of the United States ; of Britain, 39 — 



X TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

their commprcial distress, 40 — peculiar advantages of the United 
States, 40 — their exports 41— imports, 42 — home and foreign trade, 
43 — tonnage, 44 — tonnage of Britain, France, and other nations, 45 
— United States coasting trade, and 7iavy, ibid. — emancipation of 
Spanisk America, 4G — its importance to Britain ; to the United 
States, 47 — junction of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, 48 — nego- 
tiations with Britain and President Adams for emancipating Spanish 
America, 49 — necessity of exertion on the part of Britain, 50. 

CHAPTER III. 

J\IAmJFACTURES OF THE UKITED STATES. 

Connexion between agriculture and manufactures, 52 — folly of 
forcing manufactures, 53 — their condition in the United States, 55 
— efforts to establish their monopoly, 56 — its evil, 57 — mechanical 
skill of the United States, 58— their chief manufictures ; amount, 
quality, and value, 59 — in the different States, 61 — and in peculiar 
places, as Patterson, Philadelphia, 62 — Wilmington, Pittsburg, 63 
— steamboats, 65— Fulton, ihid. 

CHAPTER IV. 

FIJfAMVES OF THE UJ^ITED STATES. 

Necessity of internal taxation, 67 — United States taxes establish- 
ed, destroyed, 68 — mistaken economy of the United States, 69 — 
standing army of the United States ; of Britain, 70 — importance of 
taxation, and moneyed institutions, 71 — national debt of the United 
States, 72 — loans of last war, 73 — sinking fund, 74 — revenue of 
the United States, 75 — customs, duties, &c. 76 — internal taxes, 81 
■ — their apportionment, 82 — United States property in land, slaves, 
&c. 83 — its rapid increase. Bo— public lands, 86 — finances of the 
United Slates for 1317, 88 — aggregate of the United States capi- 
tal, income, and expenditure, 89 — do. of Britain ; her deficit, 90 
— do. of France, and other powers, 94 — purchase of /Vor/t/a, 95 — 
contrast between the energy of the United States and supineness of 
Britain, 96 — importance of Cuba to Britain, 97— feverish state of 
Europe, ibid. — preponderance of Russia, ibid. — Holy League, 98— 
combination of Europe and the United States against Britain, 98. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. XI 

CHAPTER V. 

GOVER^rj^IEJ^'T, POLICY, AXD LAWS OF THE UmTED STATES. 

United States governments all elective, 99 — importance of po- 
litical economy, ibid. — characteristic differences between ancient 
and modern governments, 100 — best works on political philosophy, 
106 — mischief of monopo/ies, whether mercantile, or manufacturing, 
or agricultural, 108 — the essentials of a good government, 109 — na- 
tional sovereignty of the United States, 111 — advantages of a zorit- 
ten Constitution, 112 — importance of studying ^mencan polity, 113 
— relation of General and State governments, 114 — their probable 
duration, 114— Barbe de Marbois, 115 — G. Morris, ibid. — Fede- 
ral Constitution of the United States ; its powers and representa- 
tives, 116 — evils of frequent elections, 117 — of voting by ballot, 
120 — of universal suffrage, 121 — of qualifications in the elected, 
ibid. — of disfranchising the clergy, 122 — Senators of the United 
States; how appointed, 123 — importance of a durable Senate, 124 
—evils of excluding cabinet officers from the Legislature, 130 — of 
under paying the public servants, 132 — executive negative, 134 — 
money bills, 137 — general powers of congress, 138 — evils of the 
present location of the seat of the Federal Government, 139 — 
slave system in the United States, 148 — in the world, 149 — aboli- 
tion of the slave trade by the United States, 150 — evils of slavery, 
151 — slaves burned alive in the United States, 152 — attempt in the 
United States to colonize free blacks, 153 — best writers on the Uni- 
ted States government and policy, 156 — papers of General Hamilton, 
158 — powers of the United States Executive, 159— President ; 
Vice-President; 160— how chosen, 161 — Qv'ih of caucus, ibid. — joint 
powers of Executive and Senate, 165 — evils of multitudinous exe- 
cutive in the States generally, and particularly in New- York, 1G7 — 
executive power of pardoning ; its importance, 172 — abused in the 
United States, 174 — Judicial powers of the United States, 175 — 
evils of cashiering Judges at sixty, 177 — requisites of independence in 
judiciary, 178 — their dependence in many of the States, 100 — pow- 
er of American judiciary over legislative Acts, 183 — which not 
known in any other country, 184 — usurpation of Georgia Legisla- 
ture over the judiciary, 187 — importance of such power in the 
judiciary, 107 — diversity of laws in the United States ; its evil ; 190 
— crime committed in one State not punishable in another, 193 — 



XII TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

duelling; General Hamilton and his son, 194 — importance of uni- 
form laws in the United States, 195 — miscellaneous powers of Con- 
gress, 196 — amendments of the Federal Constitution, 197 — hovr 
made, 199 — unsuccessful attempts to make, 201 — by Senator Hill- 
house, ibid. — the Hartford Convention, 202 — General Hamilton'! 
plan of the United States Constitution, 203— paper constitutions, 206 
— necessity of a vigorous administration of the Federal Government, 
207 — Presidents AVashington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, 
208 — effects of the Washington administration on the United States, 
209 — duty of a wise government to exclude foreigners from all 
political privileges, 210 — necessity of preserving and strengthening 
the federal Union, 211 — evils of its disruption, 213 — all nea; go- 
vernments weak ; instanced in Britain and the United Stixtes, 215 — 
general government of the Unitgd States too weak in itself, 217 — 
its probable career, 210 — chief characteristics of American institu- 
tions, 220 — population of the United States better, their govern- 
ment weaker, than those of Europe, 221 — chief defects in all 
governments, ancient and modern, 222 — peculiar adaptation of tlie 
United States government to its people, 225 — Mr. Jay's parallel 
between European and American governments, 226 — general course 
of all free governments, 228 — superior physical, intellectual, and 
moral qualities of the American people, 229 — increased power of 
the people, all over the world, 230 — Emperor Alexander, 231 — 
M. Talleyrand, 232— relative importance of the United States, east- 
ern and western sections, 233 — probable consequences of western 
predominance, 234 — general conviction, in the United States, of 
superiority of American to the British people, 235 — the great ques- 
tion at issue between American and European governments, 236 — 
Resources of the United States relatively greater than those of Bri- 
tain, 237 — the revolutionary question supported by the United 
States and Continental Europe, against England, 241 — its probable 
result, 242— danger of British Colonies, particularly Canada ; its 
maladministration, 243 — Cuba once offered to Mr. Jefferson, 245 — 
.•Spanish American Colonies must fall to the United States, whom 
Britain cannot conciliate, 246 — Vienna Treaty, 247 — Holy League, 
ibid. — United States more formidable to Britain than Russia, 240 — 
Mr. Jackson's (the British Ambassador to the United States,) opi- 
nion of the American people, 249 — their capacity and character, ifi 
peace and war, 250— po//t/ca/ parties in the United States, 251— 



TABLE OP CONTENTS. xlii 

their views and objects, ibid. — home policy of the United States, 252 
—their skilful diplomacy, 2 52— its importance, 253— skilful diploma- 
cy of France and Russia contrasted with the diplomatic blunders of 
England, 254— origin and progress of the anned neutrality, from 
1754 to 1815, 259 — causes of England's unskilful diplomacy, 2G5 — 
her intrinsic home power, 267— Mr. Jefferson's prophecy concern- 
ing her, in 1782, 269— LAWS of the United States and the world 
generally, 270— their study most important, 271— necessity of 
Lectures on, in the United States, 273— effect of the study of law 
on the human understanding, 275— Mr. Burke, 276— Mr. Canning, 
277— author of Pursuits of Literature, 278— Lord Thurlow, Lord 
Kenyon, Lord Bacon, 279— superiority of the common to the civil 
law, 283— its prevalence in the United States, 284— outline of legal 
study, 285— some defects in the juridical system of America, 286— 
no remedy against the United States or a separate State, 286— bad 

iiisolvent laws, 287— lower law-officers badly appointed, ibid. 

usury, 26trf.— poor-laws, 288— New-York Sunday School Union, 
ihid. — defects oi New-York Constitution, 292 — necessity of amend- 
ing New-York Constitution, ibid. — its Court of Errors, &c. 293 

no Bar, in a free country, can be overstocked, 294— lawyers 
govern the United States, ibid.-^-ihe American Bar averages a 
greater amount of talent than the British, 295— characteristics of 
American and British eloquence ; of ancient and modern speakin"-, 
297— of American and British law-reporters, 302 — English crown 
lawyers and New- York lawyers, 303. 

CHAPTER VI. 

OX THE LITERATURE OF THE UjYITED STATES. 

" The United States and England," 304— Mr. Southey ; Editors 
of the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews, 305— United States tinder- 
rated in Europe, 306— Franklin's refutation of the French theory, 

307— cawses of the United States literature being defective, 308 

no want of American genius, 309— general course of readers and 
writers in the United States, 310— <oo early practical life in the 
United States, 313— periodical publications, 314— perpetual change, 
315— necessity of an original Review in the United States, 316— 
elementary education in the United States ; in Britain, 319— saying 
of George the Third, titi— Greeks and Trojans in the United States, 



XIV TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

320 — importance of universal education, ibid — liberal education de« 
fecfive in the United States, 321 — grammar-schools, 322 — grammar 
decried in the United States, 323— its defence, 32i— -colleges in the 
United States, 327 — want of .Lectures in the United States, 328— 
education injured by clerical monopoly, 329 — elocution in the Uni- 
ted States vitious and nasal, 331 — pronunciation of English, Greek, 
and Latin tongues, 336— formal duhiess a bad qualitication for a pro- 
fessor, 339 — importance of enthusiasm in a teacher, 340 — outline 
of Lectures on Belles Lettres and Rhetoric, and on Moral Philoso 
phy, 341 — gradational studies, metaphysics, mathematics, physics, 
classics, 343 — outline of liberal education in England, 345 — in Scot- 
land, 347 — importance of composition in prose and verse, 349 — 
neglect of general literature in United States professions, 350 — its 
importance to all professional men, 351— prosody universally mur- 
dered in the United States, 352 — United States writers, 353 — histo- 
ry, 354— novels, ibid — poetry, 355 — Marshal's Washington, 356 — 
periodical works, 357— M'Fingal, 358 — Mr. Wirt ; Fisher Ames, 

359 Colden's Fulton, 3G0 — Mr. Walsh, 361 — medical science in 

the United States, 363 — Fine Arts, 364 — remedies proposed for 
literary deficiencies of the United States, 365 — learned societies in 
the United States, 367 — Governor Clinton, 368 — importance of a 
National University in the United States, 369— female education in 
the United States, 371— Mr. Griscom, ibid— Miss H. More, 372. 

CHAPTER Vir. 

OJV THE HABITS, MJiXJ^ERS, AJ^D CHARACTER OF THE 
UMTTED STATES. 

General ignorance o{ foreigners, particularly the British, respect- 
ing the character of the United Slates, 374.— causes of that igno- 
rance, 375 — M. Talleyrand's notions of the American cliaracter, 
ibid. — national gratitude, what, 376 — basis of the United States 
character, 377 — identity of language, 378 — United States national 
loyalty, 300 — M. Talleyrand mistaken as to the American character, 
381 — course of colonial settlements, 384 — United States; /loa; set- 
tled and peopled, 385 — foreign emigrations to the United States ; 
Irish colony ; French establishment, 387— s/arcs, their number and 
effect in the United States, 388 — religion the basis of all nationid 
'"haracter, and gague of all national prosperity, 392 — serious chasnf)S 



TABLE OP CONTENTS. XV 

of religious ordinances in the United States, 394 — infidelity in the 
United States, 394 — Virginia ; Louisiana, 395 — necessity of reli- 
gion to human communities, 396 — experiment of national infidelity 
made in Europe, 397 — the three eras of paganism, superstition, and 
infidelity, in the history of the world, and their gradational effects 
upon mankind, 398 — infidelity alhed with the revolutionary ques- 
tion, exemplified in France and England, 403 — United States calm- 
ness in religion, 405 — Dr. Priestley, 407 — no national church in the 
United States ; of whose population one-third without any religious 
ordinances, 408 — evils of exclusive State religion, 409 — of tithes, 
410 — spirit of the age ; Archbishop Laud ; Lord Clarendon, 411 — 
prevailing sects in the United States ; their church government, 412 — 
American clergy, 413 — collegiate churches, 414 — religion and 
hypocrisy are substance and shadow, ibid. — Sunday Schools, Mis- 
sionary and Bible Societies in the United States, 415 — study of S. 
S. 416 — Owen's History of British and Foreign Bible Society, 417 
— morals and manners of the United States, 419 — New-England, 
420 — Middle States, 422 — Southern States, 423 — American ajomera, 
ihid. — slave population deteriorates morals, 424 — caged slave in 
Virginia, 426 — Western States, 426 — Americans locomotive and 
migratory, 427 — western settlers, 428 — general manners of the 
United States, 430 — physical activity and strength of American po- 
pulation, 433 — their intellectual shrewdness, 434 — and political 
elevation, ibid. — superior, in mass, to all other people, 435 — United 
States navy, ibid — drawbacks on United States morals ; lotteries ; 
State prisons ; insolvent laws, 436 — poor-laws, 437 — immoderate 
drinking, ibid. — United States people charitable ; munificence of 
Boston, 438 — pauperism and profligacy of New- York, 439 — 7nan- 
ners of the United States ; M. Volney's notion, 443 — the real state 
of the fact, 444 — general aspect of American society^ 445 — travel- 
ling in the United States, 446 — gradational cleanliness in the west- 
ern, southern, middle, and eastern divisions, 448 — universal use of 
tobacco, in smoking and chewing, in the United States, 450 — United 
States amusements, 450 — marriages, 451 — efficient population of the 
United States, 453 — universal trading spirit in the United States, 
455 — how profited by British capital, in credit and insolvencies, 
ibid. — extravagance general in the United States, 456 — Descartes 
and Dutch Stadtholder, 457 — no family wealth, 458 — nor social 
subordination in children, scholars, servants, 469 — national vanity 



XVI TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

of the United States, 460— means of rendering the United States 
the greatest nation in the world, 461. 

CONCLUSION. 

PRESEJ^T STATE OF EUROPE. 
Necessity of vigorous administration of our Federal Government, 
462 — state of France, ibid. — clergy ; nobility, 463 — representation 
and revolution, 464 — balance ofpozver deranged, ibid. — Prussia, ibid. 
— Austria, 465 — Spain; her capacity and condition, 466 — her gene- 
ral ignorance, 467 — governed by foreigners, 468 — her constitution 
of 1812, 469 — return of Ferdinand, ibid. — intrinsic power of 
France, 470 — hercontra-indications, 471 — preponderance of Russia y 
474 — her steady ambition, 475 — her portentous progress, 476 — 
Sir Robert Wilson, 477 — radical difference between American and 
European governments, ibid. — defects of all free governments, 478 
— intrinsic power of England, 479 — shattered by the French revo- 
lution, ibid. — British Constitution, 480 — United States Constitution, 

482 — European governments either military or commercial, 483 

defects of English administration ; home, foreign, and colonial, 484 
— her employment of national talent, 486 — her growth during the 
last three centuries, 488 — duration of national power and talent, 
489 — Chatham ; Pitt ; Castlereagh ; Canning, 492 — her present 
condition, 493 — death of her lineal princess, 495 — necessity of the 
United States to augment their national strength and general go- 
vernment, 496 — their recent destruction of internal revenue, and 
occupation of Amelia Island, 497 — treasury documents for 1817, 
499 — rates of pay to public officers in the United States, 501 — me- 
moranda of mutation and variety, 502 — British revenue and expen- 
diture for 1818, 504 — abolition of the slave trade by Spain and Por- 
tugal, 605— -war between the United States apd Spain, ibid. 



THE 

RESOURCES 

OF THE 

UNITED STATES, &c. 

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 

Importance of the United States — Misrepresentations of 
Travellers^ SCc, 

J. HE resources and character, the present power, and 
future prospects of the United States, are very imper- 
fectly appreciated or understood by the nations of 
Europe. Nay, one of the great British critics has re- 
cently informed us — that the Americans themselves 
have not yet told their own story well ; nor sufficiently 
directed their mind towards fathoming the capabilities 
of their own country. 

To ascertain and exhibit the resources of this ex- 
tended and rapidly-rising empire, is worthy the atten- 
tion of every one who feels a deep interest in the well- 
being of the republic. Indeed, no object can be pre- 
sented more worthy of the contemplation of all the 
nations of the globe, than the growing capacities of a 
commonwealth which has borne itself, triumphantly, 
through two severe and bloody conflicts, against the 
most fearful odds ; and run a career of peace, unex- 
ampled in enterprise and prosperity throughout the 
history of the world. 

Humanly speaking, no circumstances can prevent 
these United States from becoming, eventually, and at 

1 



2 RESOURCES OI-' THE UNITED STATES. 

no distant period, a great and powerful nation, in- 
fluencing and controlling the other sovereignties of the 
world ; — seeing that they are secure from the dread of 
powerful neighbours ; that they are not composed of 
detached and distant territories ; but that one connect- 
ed, fertile, wide-spreading country is the goodly heri- 
tage of their donnnion ; that they are blessed with a 
vast variety of soils and productions, and are watered 
with innumerable streams for the delight and accom- 
modation of their inhabitants ; that a succession of navi- 
gable rivers forms an ocean-chain around their borders, 
to bind them together ; while the most capacious wa- 
ters, running at convenient distances, present them with 
so many highways for the mutual transportation and 
exchange of all their various commercial commodities, 
both rude and manufactured ; and also, for the easy 
communication of all friendly aids, political and mi- 
litary. 

In addition to the Atlantic States, — exhibiting up- 
wards of two thousand miles of sea-coast, with innume- 
rable bays, creeks, rivers, ports, and harbours, and 
covering a surface of nearly one million of square miles, 
displaying every variety of soil and produce, — a new 
empire has suddenly sprung up within the bosom of 
of the union, like an exhalation from the earth : I mean 
that immense region called the Western Country; bound- 
ed on the north by the great lakes Erie, Huron, and 
Superior, and the chain of waters between the Grand 
Portage and the Lake of the Woods ; on the west by 
the Rocky Mountains; on the south by the Gulf of 
Mexico; on the east by the Alleghany Hills; com- 
prising full fifteen hundred thousand square miles, and 
moie i\\di\-\ fi ft ij thousand mWes of internal ship and boat 
navigation. It contains two thousand miles ol lake ; one 
//iOM,saw(/ miles of gulf : and one hundred thousand miles 
of river coast ; — the whole country is one continued 
intersection of rivers, communicating with each other. 

These vast territorial domains are held by a popula- 
tion, free as the air they breathe — a population, pow- 
erful in physical activity and strength; patient of toil, 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. ^ 

and prodigal of life ; brave, enterprising, intelligent, and 
persevering; presenting, both in body and in mind, the 
noblest materials for the formation of national greatness, 
prosperity, and influence. 

There are many and obvious reasons, why the na- 
tions of Europe are unacquainted with the resources 
and character of the United States ; which present in- 
stitutions political and social, altogether unique, and 
unparalleled in the annals of humankind. It is suffi- 
cient merely to mention one very broad source of Eu- 
ropean ignorance, with respect to this country ; namely, 
the opposite, but equally erroneous views which the 
various travellers from Europe have given of the Ame- 
rican Republic. — By far the greater portion of these 
writers have fallen into the vitious extreme of unbound- 
ed praise, or of indiscriminate censure. 

IVlany persons, frustrated in their pernicious hopes 
at home, and sometimes smarting from the recent 
scourge ; men who have been arraigned at the bar of 
justice in their own land, as traitors and felons, and 
have exchanged the well- merited gallows for an igno- 
minious exile, have generally depicted this country as 
the seat of uncontaminated purity, and uninterrupted 
happiness. If we may believe the assertions of these 
political philosophers, the soil every where teems with 
spontaneous plenty ; the air is balmy and fragrant ; the 
soft delights of perpetual spring dwell upon the land ; 
the form of government, as it is written down upon 
paper, and appears in a printed book, is the model of 
all human perfection ; the rulers are, of necessity, all 
virtue, wisdom, and strength; and the people^ who elect, 
and from the midst of whom are elected these rulers, 
are, invariably, all incorruptible in their political in- 
tegrity, pure in their personal conduct, simple and re- 
fined in their social manners. Vice knows no habitation 
here ; and paradise is again restored on earth, as it ex- 
isted, in all the bloom of innocence and love, before the 
fall of our primeval parents. 

Another set of writers, either rankling under the dis- 
appointment of their too sanguine expectations of sue- 



4 RESOURSES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

cess in this country ; or, from a very slight and super- 
ficial view of what they did not understand, and under' 
the guidance of that self-suflicient malignity, which is 
the inseparahle concomitant of dulness and ignorance, 
and measuring every thing they saw here by the habits 
and manners of the people in their own country, and 
resolutely condemning whatsoever differed from the 
standard to which they themselves had been accustom- 
ed ; without ever once reflecting upon the very differ- 
ent states of society which must, necessarily, take 
place in an old, long-established, and fully peopled 
country, and in one which labours under all the peculiar 
circumstances of national infancy — a thin, and a scat- 
tered population over an immense extent of territory, 
the unfinished condition of its social habits, the fluctua- 
tion of its political institutions, the uncertainty of its 
popular movements — have taken upon themselves to 
represent these United States as cursed with a barren 
and inhospitable soil ; an ungenial and dreary clime ; 
a government, full of weakness, fraud, and violence ; a 
people, made up and compounded of the sweepings and 
refuse of Europe — " the taint of anarchy, and the blast 
of crime," — fickle and turbulent in their politics, rude 
and coarse in their behaviour, and steeped in all the 
vulgar brutality of vice and faction. 

Gilbert Imlay^ and M. St. John de Crevecoenr, author 
of " The American Farmer," and of pretended " Tra- 
vels in Upper Pennsylvania and the State of INew-York," 
have exceedingly exaggerated the excellencies of the 
United States, by representing them as the abode of 
7nore than all the perfection of innocence, happiness, 
plentv, learning, and wisdom, than cmi be allotted to 
human beings to enjoy. A far greater number of wri- 
ters, however, have outraged decency, by loading the 
Ameiican people with abuse and calumny. Among 
the vilest and the silliest of these, are Parkinson.^ an 
En_:;lish fanner; ^i/ic, a W-t/m/^/ military officer; and 
one Jansen^ a non-descript. 

These writers, as appears from their own confession, 
never herded with any other companions than the low- 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 5 

er classes of society in the union — such as stage-drivers, 
masters of sloops, keepers of ale-houses, low mechanics, 
retail tradesmen, and labouring peasants. It is not, in- 
deed, pretended by any of the advocates of American 
character and claims, that among these classes of the 
community can be discovered any very great refine- 
ment of breeding — or any very extensive information — 
or any very profound reflection. 

Another set of travellers in this country, have come 
hither with letters of introduction to some very respect- 
able gentiemen in the United States; and, in conse- 
quence, have been received into their families, and the 
families of their friends and acquaintance ; and, in 
every instance, have been treated with hospitality and 
kindness. These men have gone away to Europe, and 
published anecdotes of private families, have given to 
the world accounts of mere domestic incidents, such as 
could only have been imparted in the moments of un- 
suspecting confidence ; and the relation of which can 
serve no other purpose, than to sadden the heart of 
those who have been betrayed, and stamp, in characters 
of lasting infamy, the baseness of the being who could 
thus drag into painful notice individuals wishing to pass 
their lives in the privacy of cultivated retirement, occa- 
sionally diversified by the more select intercourse of the 
social circle. 

On the heio;ht of this bad eminence stand the Mar- 
quis de Chastilleux, and the Duke de la RouchefaucauH 
Liancovrt, who have repaid the kindness of American 
hospitality, by descanting on the vulgarity of American 
manners, and by detailing to the world occurrences and 
conversations which they could never have known, had 
they not, unfortunately, been mistaken for gentlemen 
by those whose civilities and confidence they thus 
abused. But, surely, private individuals, who do not 
obtrude themselves upon the public, but rather shun 
the eye of vulgar observation, are not fit subjects for a 
traveller's merriment, or satire. In a world, bursting 
with vice and folly, there are always knaves and cox- 
combs, in sufficient number, to exhaust all the powers 



^ RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

of ridicule and invective ; and these are the only legiti- 
mate objects, against which the laugh of the wit, and 
the declamation of the morahst, ou^ht to be directed. 

The well-known poet, iMr. Thomas Moore, when 
quite a young man, published a book, made up of prose 
and verse, in which he, very unmercifully, aoused and 
misrepresented the people of this country. Some Httle 
time since, however, he addressed a letter to Mr. John 
E. Hall, the editor of the Port-Folio, in Philadelphia, 
in which he expresses his deep repentance for having 
slandered America, and swings into the opposite ex- 
treme of unmeasured praise, representing it, now^ as 
the only land where freedom, and happiness, and so 
forth, are to be found. 

It would, indeed, be superfluous to descant upon the 
credulity of Mr. Weld^ who, in enumerating the peril- 
ous wild beasts of this country, gravely asserts, and, as 
he says, upon the authority of General Washington, 
that the moschetlo of the United States is so terrible in 
its attacks as to bite through the thickest boot. Now, 
the moschetto, which is a species of gnat^ is no more 
troublesome or offensive here., than the gnats are in the 
fens of Lincolnshire, or the lowlands ol Essex, in Eng- 
land. Besides, General Washington merely told Air. 
Weld, that the moschetto will bite through the thickest 
stockings above the boot-top, when there is any space 
between the boot and the knee-band. But Mr. Weld 
has substituted the word boot {or stocking ; and thus, 
very reasonably alarmed all cautious people with a tale 
of terror, respecting the dreadful ravages of the mos- 
chetto tribe of North America, upon the human body. 

Still more insufferable would it be to dwell upon the 
meagre, miserable trash, that is occasionally foisted in- 
to the Monthly Magazine., of London, under the signa- 
ture of a little obstetrical Quixote, at Alexandria, in the 
District of Columbia; and, by a singular misnomer, 
called " Information as to the United States." 

But the character of ^/. Brissot de Warville., the lead- 
er of the Gironde revolutionary faction in France, is 
too notorious to permit his observations on the United 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 7 

States to be passed over in silence. In a printed book 
of his, on the commerce of this country, he very pro- 
fusely praises the Americans, and calls himself a Qua- 
ker. Brissot had led a very wandering life, and had 
written an incredible number of books on politics — 
none of which were over-wise. He had been a subal- 
tern in the police, under the old French monarchy, and 
had been sent to London on some service, in the line 
of his vocation, by the lieutenant of police in Paris. 
The revolution in France, of course, raised him to the 
level of his merit, and he became the doer of a news- 
paper — an office of high importance in all revolutionary 
societies. He was, however, a better disorganizer than 
philosopher : for, in a manuscript volume of his, now, or 
lately in the city of Philadelphia, in the hands of some 
elderly Friends, or Quakers, to whom he sent it for the 
express purpose of being published in this country, (a 
step which his more prudent correspondents declined,) 
he solemnly maintains that the character of the Ameri- 
can people can always be known, infallibly, by the 
course of the rivers throughout the union. 

For instance, says this profound observer of men and 
things, when he illustrates this notable proposition, " in 
the Northern and Eastern States, the rivers are violent 
and irregular in their progress, and so is the character of 
the inhabitants of these States." — Alas ! for the people 
of New England, who have always, hitherto, been 
deemed the most sober, orderly, steady, and persevering 
in their habits and manners, of all the Americans! "In 
the Middle States," continues Brissot, " the rivers are 
strong and majestic, and so are the people. In the 
Southern departments, as Virginia, the two Carolinas, 
and Georgia, the rivers are muddy, slow, ebbing and 
flowing capriciously ; and, accordingly, the people of 
these States are dull, stagnant, and fickle." 

This consolatory mode of determining the national 
character of a people was never equalled, but once, in 
the annals of philosophism. An obscure madman, 
called William Gilbert, In the year 1797, published, in 
London, a poem, entitled " The Hurricane, a theoso- 



g RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

phical and western eclogue; to which is subjoined, a 
sohtary eirusion in a summer's evening." In the Notes, 
appended to this sohtary effusion, Mr. Gilbert assures 
us, (1 quote his own words,) '' First — that all countries 
have a specific mind^ or determinable principle. This 
character may be traced, with as much satisfaction, in 
the vegetable, as in the animal productions. Thus, 
strength, with its attributes, namely, asperity, &c. is 
the character, or mind of England. Her leading pro- 
ductions are the oak, peppermint, sloes, crabs, and sour 
cherries. All elegance, all polish is superinduced ; and 
primarily, from France, of which they [Query, who ?'\ 
are natives. Secondly — that a country is subdued when 
its mind., or ///c, (its prince, according to Daniel,) or its 
genius, according to the modern easterns, or its princi- 
ple, according to Europeans, is either suppressed, or 
destroyed, or chymically combined with that of a foreign 
country, in a form that leaves the foreign property pre- 
dominant, and not till then. And this cannot ensue but 
upon suicide, upon a previous abandoimient, on the part 
of a nation, of its own principle. For, when the Crea- 
tor made every thing very good, he also made it tena- 
ble on the one hand, and on the other complete ; conse- 
quently, without the necessity, without the desire of en- 
croaching; and also without the capability, except 
under the penalty of surrendering, with its own complete 
roundness, its own tenability." 

"Thus," continues Mr. Gilbert, "I arrive at a pri- 
mary law of nature, that every one must fall into the 
pit that he digs for others, either before, or after, or 
without success. Thirdly — that in the European subju- 
gation of JimericUy the /\mcrican mind, or life, only 
suffered under a powerful affusion of the European; 
and that, as the solution proceeds, it acquires a stronger 
and stronger tincture of the subject, till, at length, that 
which was first subdued, assumes an absolute, unexpug- 
nable predominancy, and a final ; inasmuch as the con- 
test is between the two last parts of the world, and there 
is no prospective umpire to refer to ; but it must be 
decided by the possession of first principles, or the 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 9 

highest mind in the hierarchy of minds ; and the Eu- 
ropean possession of mind, having previously arrived at 
perfection, from her long intercourse with Africa and 
Jlsia ; and not being able to rescue her from the pre- 
sent grasp and predominancy of American mind, the 
question is nov^^ settled for ever, and Europe yields to 
the influence, mind, and power of America^ linked in es- 
sential principle with Africa and Asia for ever. Besides, 
Europe had full success in her encroachments ; she 
succeeded in throwing America into the pit; and, of 
course^ it must be her own turn to go in now ; she de- 
populated America, and, now, America must depopu- 
late her."— Q. E. D. 

It would be unjust, not to recommend the work of 
- JW. Beaujour^ late Consul from Fiunce, residing at Phi- 
ladelphia ; his view of the commerce, policy, finances, 
agriculture, manners, and habits of the United States, 
is written with great spirit and inteUigence ; and cannot 
fail to repay an attentive perusal, with a rich harvest of 
instruction and amusement. 

To which may be added M. de Marbois's preliminary 
discourse to his account of Arnold's conspiracy, where 
the United States, their institutions, and people, are 
spoken of in terms of high eulogy, and ardent admira- 
tion. For a splendid and interesting account, and an 
excellent translation of this work, the reader is referred 
to the second volume of Mr. Walsh's American Regis- 
ter. Mr. Volney's " View of the soil and climate of the 
United States of America," and Mr. Schultz's " Travels 
on an inland voyage through the States of New-York, 
Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio, &c," may also be con- 
sulted with pleasure and profit. 

Much useful information, conveyed in a plain, unos- 
tentatious style, may likewise be derived from Mr. 
Mellish's " Travels through the United States, in the 
years 1806, 1807, 1809, 1810, and 1811;" a work, 
which is particularly valuable for its account of the 
Western States, and for the candour with which it 
treats, generally, of the country, its people, institutions, 
habits, and manners. The reader will also find 

2 



IQ RESOURCES or THE UNITED STATES. 

" Travels in the Interior of the United States," by John 
Bradbury, F.L.S., an entertaining and instructive book. 
Mr. Morris Birkbeck's '• JNotes of a Journey in Ame- 
rica, from the coast of Virginia to tlie Territory of (Hi- 
nois," with the exception of some Jacobin slang against 
England and her institutions, will be found a valuable 
and interesting little work. 

Let it not be imagined, that I seek, by thus censuring 
many of the writers who have treated of this country, 
to recommend to the notice of the reader the opinions 
contained in the present work. It is merely desired to 
state the simple fact — that the people of this country 
have been grossly misrepresented ; and some publica- 
tions have been referred to, as proving the correctness 
of this statement. The chief intention of the following 
pages is to show, that the truth, as is generally the 
case in all human opinions and transactions, lies be- 
tween the two extremes, which have been chosen by 
the calumniators and panegyrists of the United States ; 
that this country is neither the garden of Eden, nor the 
valley of Tophet; that the Americans themselves are 
neither angels nor fiends; but human beings, clothed 
ivith flesh and blood, possessing the appetites and pas- 
sions, the powers and frailties of mortality ; and greatly 
influenced in their feelings, sentiments, and conduct, by 
the peculiar circumstances in which they are placed. 
It is wished, " nothing extenuating, nor setting down 
aught in malice," to give a faithful portrait, a living 
likeness of the habits and condition of an enterprising, 
intelligent, spirited, aspiring people, that must be, ere 
long, and that ou^ht^ before this period, to have been, 
better known, and more justly appreciated by the po- 
tentates and nations of Europe. 



CHAPTER I. 

On the Aspect^ j^griculture, Population, SCc. of the 
United States. 

JlT is not intended, in the following pages^ to give a 
minute detail of the agriculture, commerce, finances, 
politics, religion, education, literature, habits, and man- 
ners of the United States ; but merely to present a brief 
outiine of their resources and character, such as they 
appear, from an inspection and examination during 
several years. The reader, who wishes for more am- 
ple information upon the statistics of this country, is 
referred to the second edition of JUr. Pitkin'^s very va- 
luable work, entitled " A statistical View of the Com- 
merce of the United States of America ; its connexion 
with Agriculture and Manufactures," &;c. giving an ac- 
count of the public debt, revenues, and expenditure of 
the United States, &;c. to Mr. Tench Coxe^s " View of 
the United States of America," exhibiting the progress 
and present state of civil and religious liberty, popula- 
tion, agriculture, exports, imports, fisheries, navigation, 
ship-bdilding, manufactures, and general improvements ; 
to JUr. Blodget''s " Economica, a Statistical Manual for 
the United States of America;" to Mr. Jefferson''s 
" Notes on Virginia," in answer to certain questions 
proposed by M. Barbe de Marbois; to the " Western 
Gazetteer^ or Emigrant's Directory," containing a geo- 
graphical description of the Western States and Terri- 
tories, including the States of Kentucky, Indiana, Lou- 
isiana, Ohio, Tennessee, and Mississippi, and the Terri- 
tories of Illinois, Missouri, Alabama, Michigan, and 
Northwestern ; out of which may Ipe carved, at least 



] 2 RESOURCES OF THE UxNITED STATES, 

twelve new states, each as large as the United Kingdom 
of Great-Britain and Ireland. And, finally, the reader 
may consult Dr. Morse's " American Universal Geo- 
graphy,'' which contains much valuable information, re- 
specting the United States generally, and each separate 
state in particular. 

The United States possess prodigious physical capa- 
bilities of wealth and greatness, in a home territory, 
spread out to an enormous extent, and fertile in most of 
those productions which minister to the necessities and 
gratifications of man ; in navigable rivers, capacious and 
convenient ports, and the Atlantic main, which connects 
them with the other portions of the world. All these 
advantages brought into exercise, by the spirit and per- 
severance of an mtelligent and enterprising people, af- 
ford the means and facilities of acquiring ample power, 
and permanent strength. Indeed, the whole aspect of 
JVature here, in America, has a direct tendency to en- 
large and elevate the mind of the sensible and refined 
spectator. Little are the feelings of that being to be 
envied, whose heart does not swell with sublime emo- 
tions, when he sees with what a bold and magnificent 
profiision the living God has scattered the great works 
of his creation in this quarter of the globe ; on how vast 
and awful a scale of grandeur He has piled up the 
mountains, spread out the valleys, planted the forests, 
and poured forth the floods. 

Some political writers and moral ])hilosophers have 
asserted, that assemblages of the grander objects of 
nature tend directly to elevate the minds of those who 
live in their vicinity; and to give them a magnanimity 
of thought and action, which we look for, in vain, from 
the inhabitants of less favoured regions. And the 
elevation of mind, which is supposed to characterize 
the Scottish Highlander and the peasant of Switzer- 
land, is referred to the effect produced by the sublime 
scenery, which the rugged mountains, the winding 
streams, the sunken glens, and the roaring torrents of 
their respective countries continually offer to their per- 
ception and contemplation. This position, ho\\evcr, 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 23 

ought to be restricted in its application, and considered 
as relating only to those who are endowed with quick 
perceptions and acute feelings. For all experience 
proves, that upon ordinary minds, upon the great and 
grosser mass of human animals, no such exalting effect 
is produced, by the contemplation of nature in any of 
her visible forms, either of magnificence or beauty. 

The great majority of mankind, either employed in 
providing for the necessities of the passing day, or in- 
tent upon the pursuit of wealth, or engaged in adminis- 
tering to the gratification of the grosser senses, have 
neither the inclination nor the ability to derive pleasure 
from surveying the calm or the agitated ocean ; or from 
observing the various beauties of nature that adorn the 
fair face of the earth. All that the sea can present of 
value or delight to them, is contained in her depths, or 
wafted on her bosom, in the shape of marketable com- 
modities ; and all of satisfaction or comfort, that they can 
derive from the earth, is either pent up within her bow- 
els, in the form of the more precious minerals or metals, 
or appears upon her surface, in all the variety of those 
animal and vegetable productions that can be converted 
into nutriment or profit. Much stress, therefore, is not 
to be laid upon the grand disposition of natural scenery 
in the United States, as regulating or affecting the mo- 
ral and political character of the American people. 

President Montesquieu, and other political philoso- 
phers, (besides M. Brissot de Warville and Mr. Gil- 
bert,) do, indeed, attribute much of national character 
to physical circumstances, as scenery, soil, climate, &;c. 
But the physical circumstances of Greece and Rome 
are the same now, .as in the days of Pericles and Plato, 
of Caesar and Cicero. Yet how diflerent now are 
the Men of Athens and Rome — quantum mutatus ab 
lUo Hectore ! Such is the quickening power of liberli/, 
not only to render man, individually, great and power- 
ful, but also, to render his country, for its allotted 
hour, lord of the ascendant over other nations ; while 
despotism debases the individual citizens into slaves, and 
makes their country the vassal of vassals. Witness 



J 4 RESOURCES OF THE UNTTED STATES 

Greece, once the pride and terror of the world, now a 
bondwoman to the ignorant and barbarous Turk; — 
witness Rome, once mistress of the earth, now, the 
miserable asylum of a cumbrous superstition, decaying 
even to the last faint gleam of extinction. 

Prior to the reign of the Imperial Charles the fifth, 
Spain was the freest nation in Europe ; the power of 
her kings was guardedly limited ; all orders were ad- 
mitted to an equal representation in the diet ; she main- 
tained an entire independence on the Roman Church ; 
she engaged and excelled in every walk of literature, 
science, and erudition; she influenced and controlled 
every other European sovereignty. Now, she is ihe 
forlorn and abject slave of papal superstition, the vic- 
tim of the inquisition — dark, ignorant, helpless — a prey 
to the most despicable civil and religious bondage. 
Yet the plains of Castile and Arragon snow as wide a 
champaign, and the range of the Pyrenees, the chain of 
the Sierra Morena, and the mountains of the Asturias, 
lift their heads as proudly to the skies, now in the 
darkest hour of Spanish thraldrom and degradation, as 
in her brightest day of civil and religious liberty, chi- 
valric heroism, and mental illumination. The character 
of nations, therefore, is formed, not by physical, but by 
moral causes and influences, as government, religion, 
laws, and education — which will, hereafter, be shown 
at length. 

The United States are situated between 25" 50' and 
and 49° 17' north latitude, and between 10° ea.-t and 
48° 20' west longitude from Washington. The most 
northern part is bounded by a line, running due west 
irom the northwest corner of the I^ke of the Woods, 
and the southern extremity is the outlet of the Rio del 
Norte. The eastern extremity is the Great Menan 
Island, on the coast of Maine, and the western ex- 
tremity is Cape Flattery, north of Columbia River, on 
the Pacific Ocean. Their greatest extent from north 
to south is 1,700 miles, ana from east to west 2,700. 
Their surface covers more than 2,.'300,000 square miles, 
or 1,600,000,000 acres; and their population is ten 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



15^ 



millions, or about four persons to every square mile. 
The following table shows the population and surface 
of some of the most important parts of the world; 
namely, in round numbers, which is sufficient for our 
present purpose, to point out the proportion of territory 
and people between the United States and other so- 
vereignties. 



States in 1817. 


Population. 


Square Miles. 


All Russia 

Italy 

France 

Austria 


52,000,000 

20,000,000 

29,000,000 

26,000,000 

57,000,000 

20,000,000 

14,000,000 

11,000,000 

4,500,000 

800,000 

6,000,000 

2,200,000 

2,300,000 

200,000,000 

10,000,000 


3,650,000 
100,000 
250,000 
280,000 


Turkey 

British Isles 


940,000 
100,000 


Spain 

Prussia 


150,000 
96,000 


Sweden and Norway 

Denmark 

United Netherlands 

Switzerland , . . 


270,000 
60,000 
47,000 
16,000 


Portugal 

China 

United States N. America.. 


28,000 
1,200,000 
2,500,000 


Total 435,800,000 


9,687,000 



So that the United States have the largest home ter- 
ritory of all the nations in the world, except Russia ; 
and their population is gaining fast upon that of all the 
European powers. Chma is laid out of the question, 
because she is barbarous, helpless, and effete ; she can 
never contend for the sovereignty or controUing in- 
fluence of the world; that question must be decided 
hereafter, between America and the first-rate poten- 
tates of Europe. Britain possesses a hundred and fifty 
millions of subjects in her colonial empire, and covers a 



16 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



dominion equal to nearly one-fifth of the whole surface 
of the globe ; but her main strength must always de- 
pend upon the resources, intelligence, spirit, and cha- 
racter of her native population in the British Isles. If 
these fail, her colonial empire will be soon dissipated 
into thin air. The following table shows the gros^? 
population and surface of the four quarters of the world. 



Quarters of the World. 


Population. 


Square Miles. 


All Asia 

Africa 

Europe 

America 


600,000,000 

1.50,000,000 

200,000,000 

40,000,000 


11,000,000 
9,000,000 
2,700,000 

18,000,000 


Total 


990,000,000 


40,700,000 



The following tables show how fast the people in- 
crease in an extensive country, under the auspices of 
free and popular institutions. In the year 1749, the 
whole white population of the North American colonies, 
now the United States, amounted only to 1,046,000 
souls, in the following proportions, as to the respective 
colonies, now states : 

New-Hampshire 30,000 

Massachusetts 220,000 

Rhode-Island 3.0,000 

Connecticut 100,000 

New-York 100,000 

New-Jersey 60,000 

Pennsylvania and Delaware 2.'>0,000 

Maryland 85,000 

Virginia 85,000 

North-Carolina 45,000 

Georgia 6,000 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



17 





POPULATIOJV. 


States. 


Square 
Miles. 


1790. 


1800. 


1817. 


Vermont 


10,000 

9,800 

31,750 

8.600 

1,700 

4,500 

54,000 

6,500 

48,700 

1,800 

14,000 

75,000 

62,000 

49,000 

32,700 

64,000 


85,539 
141,885 

96,640 
378,787 

68,825 
237,946 
340,120 
184,139 
434,373 

59,094 
319,728 
747,610 

73,677 
393,751 
240,073 

82,548 

35,691 


154,466 
183,858 
151,719 
422,845 

69,122 
251,092 
686,050 
211,149 
602,545 

64,273 
349,692 
886,149 
220,959 
478,105 
345,591 
162,685 

45,365 

14,093 
105,602 


296,450 


New-Hampshire , . 

Maine ) 

Massachusetts ^ 

Rhode-Island 


302,733 

318,647 

564,392 

98,721 


Connecticut 

New- York 


349,568 
1,486,739 


New-Jersey 

Pennsylvania 


345,822 
986,494 


Delaware 


108,334 
602,710 
1,347,496 
683,753 
701,224 
664,785 
408,567 


Maryland 


Virginia } 


Kentucky* ^ 


North Carolina 

South Carolina 

Georgia 


Western Territories.. 
District of Columbia.. 
Tenoesse 




100 
63,000 
45,000 
49,000 
38,000 
65,000 
66,000 
47,500 
1,987,000 


37,892 
489,624 
394,762 
108,923 

86,734 
104,560 

39,000 
9,743 

68,794 




Ohio 










Indiana 

Mississippi 

Illinois Territory 

Michigan do 




5,641 




















Total 


2,814,550 


3,929,326 


5,303,666 


10,405,547 



What the national capacities of the State of New- 
York are, may be inferred, not only from her territo- 
rial extent, which is ten thousand square miles larger 
than all England and Wales taken together, but also 
from the fact, that she has already, in 18] 7, outstripped 
every other State in the Union, in the number oi" her 
population ; although, at the close of the revolutionary 
war, in 1783, she did not contain half the number of 
souls which the States of Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, 
Maryland, and Virginia respectively possessed. The 

3 



1 8 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES 

following facts will show how rapid has been the 
growth of some particular places in the United States. 
in the year 1783, the population of the city of New- 
York was only 26,000; m the year 1790, 33,000; in 
1800, 60,439; in 1810, 93,914; in 1817, 122,000— 
thus multiplying four times in thirty-four years. Its 
harbour, formed by the union of the Hudson with the 
strait of the Sound, called East river, makes a road- 
stead capable of containing all the navies of the world. 
Its commerce far surpasses that of any other city in the 
Union, and in the course of a few years will be second 
only to that of London. It imports most of the goods 
consumed between the Raritan and the Connecticut, a 
coast of 130 miles, and between the Atlantic ocean and 
the lakes, a range of 400 miles. In the year 1^816, the 
foreign imports into the city exceeded fifty-six millions 
of dollars. 

Fifty years since, no such place as Baltimore existed ; 
and now it is a city, abounding in commerce, wealth, 
and splendour, and contains a population of nearly sixty 
thousand souls. 

In the year 1770, there was not a sinjjle white inha- 
bitant in all Kentucky; in 1790, there were 73,677 
souls, in 1800, 220,960; and now, in 1817, nearly 
700,000. In 1783, the city of New-Orleans was in- 
habited by a few miserable Spaniards, who carried on a 
small smuggling trade. Now, m 1817, it numbers nearly 
40,000 inhabitants ; and its exports, during the last 
year, exceeded those of all the New-England States 
taken together ; the steam-boats have been found able 
to stem the current of the Mississippi; and, hence- 
forth, the struggle to engross the foreign trade of the 
whole western country will be between New-Orleans, 
New-York, Montreal, and Philadelphia. The diffi- 
culty of ascending the Mississippi, had, until the experi- 
ment of the steam-boats, prevented New-Orleans from 
supplying the western States with foreign merchandise, 
which was purchased cheaper in New-York or Phila- 
delphia, and carried by land to Pittsburgh, at the con- 
fluence of the Monongahela and Alleghany rivers, and 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. |9 

thence doAvn the Ohio, to the various settlements on 
its banks, than it could be transported up the Missis- 
sippi and the Ohio. The chief part of this immense 
and rapidly augmenting commerce will fall, of course, 
to that place which can supply foreign goods at the 
lowest rate ; the difference of price depending chiefly 
on the expense of internal transportation.? At present, 
Montreal seems to have the advantage over her rivals. 
The single portage, at the falls of Niagara excepted, 
there is a free navigation for vessels from Montreal to 
Lake Erie, and the vast extent of waters beyond. Un- 
less, indeed, the canal, to be opened between Lake Erie 
and the Hudson, may succeed in diverting the trade of 
the western country from Montreal to New-York. 

The population of New-Orleans is rapidly increasing 
by emigrations from all the other States in the Union, 
and from almost every country in Europe. The exports 
of Louisiana already exceed those of all the New- 
England States. Nearly four hundred sea vessels ar- 
rive and depart annually. And about one thousand 
vessels, of all denominations, departisd during the year 
1816, from the Bayou St. John, a port of delivery in 
the Mississippi district, and w^ere employed in carrying 
the produce of the Floridas, belonging to the United 
States. Six hundred flat-bottomed boats and three 
hundred barges brought down, last year, to New-Or- 
leans, produce from the Western States and Territo- 
ries. Ten millions of pounds of sugar are made on the 
Mississippi alone. And twenty thousand bales of cot- 
ton are exported annually. 

If the population of the United States shall increase 
for the next twenty-five years, in the same ratio that it 
has increased during the last twenty-five years, what 
European country, singk-handcd, will be able to com- 
pete with them, on the land or on the ocean ; or what 
European power will be able to preserve its American 
colonies, whether in the West-Indies or on the conti- 
nent, from their grasp .-^ And why the population 
should not increase as rapidly, in time to come, as in 
the past periods, it is difficult to prove ; for the extent 



20 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

of fertile territory, yet uncleared, is immer)se ; and any 
one, in any vocation, manual or mechanical, may, by 
honest industry and ordinary prudence, acquire an in- 
dependent provision for himself and family; so high are 
the wages of labour, averaging, at least, double the 
rate in England, and quadruple that in France ; so 
comparatively scanty the population ; so great the de- 
mand for all kinds of work ; so vast the quantity, and 
so low the price of land; so light the taxes; so little 
burdensome the public expenditure and debt. 

The recent convulsions and distresses of Europe 
have, during the last two or three years, thrown a more 
than usual quantity of foreign emigrants into the United 
States. 

For the rapid increase of population, however, this 
country is much less indebted to foreign emigration, than 
is generally believed. The number of emigrants from 
other countries, into the union, has not averaged more 
than Jive ^Aof/5aw(/ annually, during the twenty-five years 
preceding the peace of Europe in 1815; and full half 
that number have, during the same period, migrated 
from the United States, partly into Upper Canada, and 
partly as seafaring adventurers, all over the world. 
The proof that this country owes the rapid increase of 
its population chiefly to its own exertions in that univer- 
sal domestic manufactory, the production of children, 
lies in the fact, that the average births are to the deaths, 
throughout the whole United States, as 100 to 48; in 
the healthiest parts, as New-England and the Middle 
States, as 100 to 44; — in the least healthy, namely, 
the two Carolinas and Georgia, as 100 to 52. — The an- 
nual deaths average, throughout the United States, 
one in forty ; in the healthiest districts, one in fifty-six ; 
in the most unhealthy, one in thirty-five. There die, 
annually, in all Europe, in great cities, one in twenty- 
three ; in moderately- sized towns, one in twenty- 
eight ; in the country, one in thirty-five ; and in the 
most healthy parts, one in fifty-five. 

The aggregate salubrity of the United States sur- 
passes that of Europe ; the males are, generally, active. 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



21 



robust, muscular, and powerful, capable of great exer- 
tion and endurance ; the females display a fine symme- 
try of person, lively and interesting countenances, frank 
and engaging manners. Neither the men nor the wo- 
men exhibit such ruddy complexions as the British, 
Dutch, Swedes, Danes, Russians, Norwegians, and the 
northern Europeans generally. The Americans ave- 
rage a longer life than the people in Europe ; where 
only three^ out of every thousand births, reach the ages 
of eighty to ninety years ; whereas, in the United States, 
the proportion is Jive to every thousand. 

The population of the whole United States has, 
hitherto, doubled itself in rather less than twenty-Jive 
years. The New-England States, of course, do not 
retain their proportion of this increase, because large 
bodies of their people migrate annually to the western 
country; which, in consequence, has increased much 
faster than do the States on the seaboard. Kentucky, 
for example, has increased eighty per cent, in ten 
years ; Tennessee, ninety-five ; Ohio, one hundred and 
eighty; Louisiana, one hundred and fifty; Indiana, 
eight hundred ; Mississippi Territory, one hundred and 
sixty ; Illinois Territory, seven hundred ; Missouri Ter- 
ritory, six hundred ; and Michigan Territory, six 
hundred ; — while, of all the Atlantic States, the great- 
est increase is only forty-four per cent, the population 
growth of New-York ; and the least is twenty per 
cent, that of Virginia. So that, in the course of a few 
years, the States will range, if the future be hke the 
past, as to their aggregate population, in the following 
order; New- York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Kentucky, 
Ohio, North-Carolina, Massachusetts, South-Carolina, 
Tennessee, Maryland, Georgia, New-Jersey, Connecti- 
cut, Vermont, Louisiana, New-Hampshire, Indiana, 
Missouri, Mississippi, Illinois, Delaware, and Rhode- 
Island. 

Although the Western Country draws off large mi- 
grations from the Atlantic States, particularly from 
New-England, yet the annually-increasing surplus of 
population in those States has become so great, that 



22 



RESOURSES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



they will not very sensibly feel the drain ; because the 
whole of the annual increase will never migrate in any 
given year, until the older States shall be overstocked. 
Massachusetts proper, Connecticut, and Rhode-Island 
appear to be approximating to that point ; for their po- 
pulation averages a very slow increase ; and they 
furnish, yearly, great numbers of recruits to the West- 
ern Country. As long as the Federal Union lasts, 
every succeeding year will diminish the relative import- 
ance of New-England in the American commonwealth, 
by rendering her population and resources less and less 
proportionate to those of the Western States, whose 
preponderance in the national councils is already begun 
to be felt. Supposing, however, that the national 
councils shall be directed for the benefit of the whole 
United States, and not, exclusively, or too abundantly, 
for the local interests of somfe particular districts ; then 
no injury can accrue to the older States, on account of 
their annual migrations to the west : because, by aug- 
menting the population and resources of the Union at 
large, they do, in fact, augment their own strength, as 

an integral part of that Union. If otherwise, indeed, 

but it IS not pleasant to indulge in ill-omened anticipa- 
tions ; sufficient for the day is the evil thereof. 

The migrations to the west, at present, are supposed 
to average one-third of the annual increase of the older 
States ; to this, add the importation of foreigners from 
Europe, and the growth of their own native stock of 
population, in an extensive country, a fertile soil, and 
a favourable climate ; and it requires no great skill in 
political arithmetic to calculate how soon the Western 
States will outweigh all the rest of the Union in the 
general government, by the mere force of a more nume- 
rous people. An overstock of inhabitants must always 
be measured by the habits and manners prevalent in 
any given country. In the earlier stages of barbarous 
life, for instance, such as our aboriginal Indians pursue, 
one hunter for every square mile is considered by them 
a full stock ; and when there is more than this propor- 
tion, they say, " it is time for our young men to go to 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES 23 

war, or we shall starve.''^ Hence arises their merciless 
mode of fighting and extermination after conquest, so 
common to all savage hostilities. In the next, or pasto- 
ral state of human society, an increase, at the rAte of 
three or four to each square mile, takes place ; as is seen 
in Arabia, and other parts of Africa, and in Asia. In 
the more advanced stages of social life, in countries 
where agriculture and commerce prevail, the rate of 
population varies from three to three hundred for each 
square mile of territory, according to the different de- 
grees of advancement in the arts of civilization, and 
commercial, horticultural, agricultural, mechanical, and 
scientific pursuits. In the most populous parts of China, 
there are upwards of three hundred persons to each 
square mile ; in England, Ireland, the Netherlands, and 
Italy, the average is two hundred ; in France, one hun- 
dred and fifty ; in Scotland, seventy ; in Massachusetts, 
Rhode-Island, and Connecticut, fifty-two ; New-York, 
twenty; Virginia, fifteen; the whole United States, 
four. 

It is a fact worthy of observation, that in the State 
of Virginia there appear to be three distinct races of 
people ; those on the seaboard, up to the head of the 
tidewater, are a sickly, indolent, feeble tribe; from 
the head of the tidewater to the base of the Blue-ridge, 
the soil is inhabited by as fine, robust, athletic, power- 
ful a body of men as may be found in the world ; on 
the ridge of the Blue-mountains, the population is less 
in stature, but extremely active, hardy, strong, and 
enterprising. 

The rapid increase of a healthy and vigorous popu- 
lation implies a flourishing state of agriculture ; and, ac- 
cordingly, the United States, during the last twenty 
years, except 1808, (the embargo year,) and 1814, in 
addition to maintaining their own fast-growing popula- 
tion, have, on an average, exported one-fourth of their 
agricultural produce. For the tables, showing these 
exports, from the year 1791 to 1816, both inclusive, 
the reader is referred to Mr. Pitkin's Statistical View 
of the United States. Agriculture, as a science, is im- 



24 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATFX. 

proving rapidly; and agricultural societies are establish- 
ed in Massachusetts, New-York, Pennsylvania, and 
some other States, for the purpose of ascertaining the 
modes of tillage, pasture, and grazing, best adapted to 
the different districts of the union. The chief articles of 
agricultural export are wheat, flour, rice, Indian corn, 
rye, beans, peas, potatoes, beef, tallow, hides, butter, 
cheese, pork, &c. horses, mules, sheep, tobacco, cotton, 
indigo, flax-seed, wax, (fee. &c. — The following state- 
ment shows the value of agricultural exports, consti- 
tuting vegetable food, in particular years, namely : 

In 1802, $12,790,000; 1803, gl4,080,000; 1807, 
g 14,432,000; 1808, g2,550,000; 1811, g20,39l,000; 
1814, g2,179,000; 1815, $11,234,000; 181G, 
g 13, 150,000. 

The United States far surpass Europe in navigable 
capacities ; their rivers are more numerous, more ca- 
pacious, and navigable a greater distance. The Hud- 
son, or North river, that ministers to the convenience 
and wealth of the city of New-York, and is, by no 
means, to be reckoned among the largest of the Ame- 
rican rivers, is navigable for sizeable craft nearly two 
hundred miles from the Atlantic. Some notion may 
be formed of the facilities for internal navigation in this 
country, by casting the eye over a map of the United 
States, and tracing the course of some of the principal 
rivers; for instance, the Missouri, the Arkansas, the Red 
River, the La Plate, the Ohio, the Tennessee, and, 
above all, the Mississippi, the eastern extremity of 
whose stream is the head water of the Alleghany, in 
Pennsylvania, about two hundred miles nortliwest of 
Philadelphia. Its western extremity is the headwater 
of Jefferson river, about 550 miles from the Pacific 
ocean ; making a distance between these two extreme 
points, of 1700 miles, in a straight line, its northern 
extremity is a branch of the Missouri, about 570 miles 
west by north of the Lake of the Woods. Its southern 
extremity is the south pass into the gulf of Mexico, 
about a hundred miles below New-Orleans; making a 
distance, between its extreme north and .south, in a 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 25- 

dtraigbt line, of 1680 miles. So that this river, and its 
branches, spread over a surface of about fifteen hundred 
thousand square miles, traversing, in whole, or in part, 
the following States and Territories ; namely, tiie Ter- 
ritories of Mississippi, Missouri, Northwest, and Illi- 
nois ; and the States of Indiana, Ohio, New-York, 
Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, the two Carolinas, 
Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Louisiana. 

Several successful efforts have been made, and more 
are now in progress and in contemplation, to render 
the vast internal navio-ation of the United States still 

o 

more complete by the help of canals. On this subject, 
much valuable information may be derived from the 
able and luminous Report of Mr. Gallatin, when Se- 
cretary of the Treasury, on public roads and canals, 
sent to the Senate on the 2d of March, 1807. This 
Report, the substance of which will be given presently, 
recommends to the general government to form canals, 
from north to south, along the Atlantic seacoast; to 
open communications between the Atlantic and western 
waters, and between the Atlantic waters and those of 
the great lakes, and river St. Lawrence ; and, finally, 
to make interior canals, wherever they may be wanted, 
throughout the Union. The United States possess a 
tidewater inland navigation, secure from storms and 
enemies, reaching from Massachusetts to the southern 
extremity of Georgia, and interrupted only by four 
necks of land ; namely, the isthmus of Barnstable, in 
Massachusetts ; that part of New-Jersey which extends 
from the Raritan to the Delaware ; the peninsula be- 
tween the Delaware and the Chesapeake ; and the low 
marshy tract which divides the Chesapeake from Albe- 
marle Sound. 

It is needless to expatiate on the utility of such a 
range of internal navigation, whether in peace or war, 
to quicken the pace, and multiply the products of com- 
merce; to augment the means, and magnify the re- 
sources both of offensive and defensive warfare. 

The inconveniences, complaints, nay dangers, result- 
ing from a vast extent of territory, caniioi be radically 

4 



26 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

removed or prevented, except by opening speedy and 
easy communications through all its parts. Canals 
would shorten distances, facilitate commercial and per- 
sonal intercourse, and unite by a still more intimate 
community of interests the most remote quarters of the 
United States. No other single operation has so direct 
a tendency to strengthen and perpetuate that Federal 
Union, which secures external independence, domestic 
peace, and internal liberty to the many millions of free- 
men that are spread over an area of territory larger 
than the surface of all Europe. 

Impressed with the weight of these truths, the House 
of Representatives and Senate, in Congress assembled, 
in February, 1817, passed a bill, appropriating a fund 
for internal improvement ; the principal features of 
which were to perfect the communication from Maine to 
Louisiana; to connect the Lakes with the Hudson 
river; to connect all the great commercial points on 
the Atlantic, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, 
Richmond, Charleston, and Savannah, with the Western 
States, and complete the intercourse between the west 
and New-Orleans. On the 3d of March, Mr. Madison 
withheld his signature, on account of his scruples, that 
the Federal Constitution had not given to Congress any 
power to make internal improvements in the United 
States; and Mr. Monroe, in his message to Congress 
on the 2d of December, 1817, after expatiating on the 
benefit of canals and roads, declares it to be his settled 
opinion that Congress has no power to make any such 
internal improvement; and advises an amendment to the 
Federal Constitution, that shall give such a power. 
But the committee of the House of Representatives, on 
this part of the President's Message, reported, on the 
15th of December, 1817, that Congress has power, \st. 
To lay out, construct, and improve post roads through 
the several States, with the assent of the respective 
States. 2dly. To open, construct, and improve rnilitanj 
roads, through the several States, with the assent of 
the respective States, 'ddly. To cut canals through the 
several States, with their assent, for promoting and 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES, 27 

giving security to internal commerce, and for the more 
safe and economical transportation of military stores in 
time of war; leaving, in all these cases, the jurisdic- 
tional right over the soil, in the respective States. 

If the general government cannot aid the internal 
navigation of the Union, it is in the power of the State 
governments to accomplish that important object at a 
comparatively small expense. For less than one hun- 
dred thousand dollars, a sloop navigation might be 
opened between Buffaloe and the Fond du Lac, a dis- 
tance of 1800 miles; the only interruption being the 
Rapids of St. Mary, between lakes Huron and Supe- 
rior. The Ohio, by one of its branches, French Creek, 
approaches, with a navigation for boats to within seven 
miles of Lake Erie; by the Connewango, to within 
nine ; by the Muskingum to the source of the Cayahoga. 
The Wabash mingles its waters with those of the 
Miami of the Lakes ; and the waters of the Illinois 
interweave their streams with those of Lake Michigan, 
whence to St. Louis boats pass without meeting with a 
single portage. 

The Apalachian Mountains extend west of south 
from the 42d to the 34th degree of north latitude, ap- 
proaching the sea, and washed by the tide, in the State 
of New- York; and thence, in their southerly course, 
gradually receding from the seashore. In breadth 
about 150 miles, they present a succession of parallel 
ridges following nearly the direction of the seacoast, 
irregularly intersected by rivers, and divided by narrow 
valleys. The ridge, called Alleghany, which divides 
the Atlantic rivers from the western waters, preserves 
throughout a nearly equal distance of 250 miles from 
the Atlantic ocean, and a nearly uniform elevation of 
3000 feet above the level of the sea. These mountains 
consist of two principal chains, between which lies the 
fertile limestone valley, that, although occasionally in- 
terrupted by transversal ridges, and, in one place, by 
the dividing or Alleghany ridge, reaches from New- 
burgh and Esopus, on the Hudson river, to Knoxville, 
on the Tennessee. The eastern and narrowest chain is 



28 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

the Blue Ridge of Virginia which, in its northeast 
course, traverses under various names, the States of 
Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New-Jersey, forms the 
Highlands, hroken at Wcstpoint by the tide of the Hud- 
son, and tiicn uniting with the Green Mountains, as- 
sumes a northerly direction, and divides the waters of 
the Hudson and Lake Champlain, from those of Con- 
necticut river. 

On the borders of Virginia and North Carohna, the 
Blue Ridge is united by an inferior mountain, with the 
great western chain, and thence to its southern extre- 
mity, becomes the principal or dividing mountain, dis- 
charging eastward the rivers Roanoke, Pedee, Santee, 
and Savannah, into the Atlantic Ocean ; southward, the 
Chatahouchee, and the Alabama, into the Gulf of Mexi- 
co ; and westward, the New River, and the Tennessee. 
The New River, taking a course northward, breaks 
through all the ridgei of the great western chain ; and, 
a little beyond it unites, under the name of Kanhawa, 
with the Ohio. The Tennessee at first runs south- 
Avest, between the two chains ; until having, in a course 
"westward, turned the southern extremity of the great 
western chain, it takes a direction northward, and joins 
its waters w^ith those of the Ohio, a few miles above 
its confluence with the Mississippi. The western chain, 
much broader and more elevated, bears the names of 
Cumberland and Gauly mountains, from its southern 
extremity, near the great bend of the Tennessee river, 
until it becomes, in Virginia, the principal or dividing 
mountain. Thence, in its northerly course, towards the 
State of New-York, it discharges westward the Green 
Brier river, which, by its junction with the New River, 
ibrms the Kanhawa, and the rivers Monongahela and 
Alleghany, which, from their confluence at Pittsburgh, 
assume vhe name of Ohio. Eastward, it pours into the 
Atlantic Ocean, James River, the Potomac, and the 
Susquehannah. From the northernmost and less eleva- 
ted spurs of tiie chain, tiie Gennessee flows into the 
lake Ontario; and in that quarter the northern branches 
of the Susquehannah appear to take their source, from 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES, 29 

among inferior ridges ; and, in their course to the 
Chesapeake, to break through all the mountains. From 
the Susquehannah, the principal chain runs more east- 
ward, and washed on the north by the lateral valley of 
the river Mohawk, terminates, under the name of Cats- 
kill Mountain, in view of the tidewater of the Hudson. 

It is evident that a canal navigation cannot be carried 
across these mountains ; the most elevated lock canal 
in the world is that of Languedoc ; and the highest 
ground over which it is carried is only 600 feet above 
the sea. England, with all her means and appliances, 
has never yet completed a canal of an elevation exceed- 
ing 500 feet above the waters united by it. The Alle- 
ghany Mountain, generally, is 3000 feet above the 
level of the sea. The impracticability arises from the 
principle of lock navigation, which, in order to effect 
the ascent, requires a greater supply of water in pro- 
portion to the height to be ascended, whilst the supply 
of water becomes less in the same proportion. Nor 
does the chain of mountains, through the whole" extent 
where it divides the Atlantic from the western rivers, 
afford a single pond, lake, or natural reservoir. Indeed, 
except in the swamps along the southern seacoast, no 
lake is to be found in the United States south of 41 
degrees of north latitude ; and almost every river, north 
ot 42 degrees, issues from a lake or pond The works 
necessary, therefore, to facilitate the communications 
from the seaports across the mountains to the western 
waters, must consist either of artificial roads, extending 
the whole way from tidewater to the nearest and most 
convenient navigable western waters, or of improve- 
ments in the navigation of the leading Atlantic rivers to 
the highest practicable points, connected by artificial 
roads across the mountains, with the nearest points 
from which a permanent navigation can be relied on, 
down the western rivers. 

The undertaking may be accomplished, by making 
four artificial roads from the four great western rivers, 
the Alleghany, Monongahela, Kanhawa, and Tennes- 
see, to the nearest corresponding Atlantic rivers, the 



0Q RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Susquehannah, or Juniata, the Potomac, James river, 
and either the San tee or Savannah, and continuing the 
roads eastward to the nearest seaports. To which add 
the improvement of the navigation of the four Atlantic 
rivers, from the tidewater to the highest practicable 
point effected, principally by canals round the falls, and 
by locks, when necessary; and particularly a canal at 
the Falls of Ohio. And although a canal navigation, 
uniting the Atlantic and western waters in a direct 
course across the mountains, is not practicable, yet the 
mountains may be turned, either on the north, by means 
of the Mohawk valley and Lake Ontario, or on the 
south, through Georgia and the Mississippi Territory. 

The country lying between the sources of the rivers 
Chatahouchee and Mobile and the Gulf of Mexico, is 
an inclined plane, regularly descending towards the 
sea ; and, by following the proper levels, it presents no 
natural obstacles to opening a canal, fed by the waters 
of the Mobile and Chatahouchee, and extending from 
the tidewater on the coast of Georgia to the Missis- 
sippi. The distance in a direct line is about 550 miles; 
and the design, if accomplished, would discharge the 
Mississippi into the Atlantic ocean. An inland naviga- 
tion, even for open boats, already exists from New- 
Orleans by the Canal Carondelet to Lake Pontchar- 
train, thence, between the coast and the adjacent 
islands, to the Bay of Mobile, and up its two principal 
rivers, the Alabama and the Tombigbee, to the head of 
the tide within the acknowledged boundaries of the 
United States. 

The current of these two rivers being much less 
rapid than that of the Mississippi, they were for a long 
time contemplated, particularly the Tombigbee, as af- 
fording a better communication to the ascending or re- 
turning trade from New-Orleans to the waters of the 
Tennessee, from which they are separated by short 
portages. The navigation of the Kanhawa and the 
eastern branches of the Tennessee, Monongahela, and 
Alleghany, in their course through the mountains, may 
be easily improved. From the foot of the mountain* 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



31 



all those rivers, especially the Ohio, flow with a much 
gentler current than the Atlantic rivers. All those 
rivers, at the annual melting of the snows, rise to the 
height of more than forty feet, affording from the upper 
points, to which they are navigable, a safe navigation to 
the sea for any ship that can pass over the bar at the 
mouth of the Mississippi. And numerous vessels, from 
one to four hundred tons burden, are now annually built 
at several ship-yards on the Ohio, as high up as Pitts- 
burgh, and bringing down to New-Orleans the produce 
of the upper country consumed there, carry to Europe 
and the Atlantic ports of the United States the sugar, 
the cotton, and the tobacco of the States of Louisiana, 
Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Indiana, and of 
the Missouri and Alabama Territories. 

Until lately the exports far exceeded the imports of 
New-Orleans; such were the labour, time, and expense 
necessary to ascend the rapid stream of the Mississippi, 
the nature of whose banks, annually overflowed on a 
breadth of several miles, precludes the possibility of 
towing paths. So that whilst the greater part of the 
produce of the immense country watered by the Mis- 
sissippi and its tributary streams, was, of necessity, 
exported through the channel of New-Orleans, the im- 
portations of a considerable portion of that country 
were supphed from the Atlantic seaports by water and 
land communications. But now steam-boats carry mer- 
chandise and men from New-Orleans up to the Falls of 
Louisville, on the Ohio, a distance of 1700 miles. Here 
a canal might be made for half a million of dollars. At 
present, however, there is a portage of less than two 
miles at the Ohio falls, whence steam-boats ply regu- 
larly to Pittsburgh, a distance of 700 miles ; thus en- 
suring to the Western Country and its great outlet, 
New-Orleans, a rapidity of growth in wealth, poAver, 
and population, unexampled in the history of the world. 
ft is to be noted, however, that steam-boat navigation 
is much more expensive than that by sloops, nearly as 
ten to one. 



32 ' RESOURCES OF THE UMTED STATES. 

As to the communications between the Atlantic rivers 
and the river St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes, ves- 
sels ascend the St. Lawrence from the sea to Montreal. 
The river Sorrel discharges at some distance below that 
town, the waters of Lake George and Lake Champlain, 
which penetrate southward within the United States. 
From Montreal to Lake Ontario the ascent of the St. 
Lawrence is 200 feet. From the eastern extremity of 
Lake Ontario, an inland navigation for vessels of more 
than a hundred tons burden is continued above a thou- 
sand miles, through lakes Erie, St. Clair, and Huron, 
to the western and southern extremities of Lake Mi- 
chigan, with no other interruption than the falls and 
rapids of Niagara, between Lake Erie and Lake On- 
tario. Lake Superior, the largest of those inland seas, 
communicates with the northern extremity of Lake 
Huron, by the river and rapids of St. Mary's. Five 
Atlantic rivers approach the waters of the St. Law- 
rence ; namely, the Penobscot, Kennebeck, Connecti- 
cut, the North, or Hudson river, and the Tioga branch 
of the Susquehannah ; which last river might alTord a 
useful communication with the rivers Seneca and Ge- 
nessee, that empty themselves into Lake Ontario. The 
Susquehannah is the only Atlantic river whose sources 
approach both the western waters and those of the St. 
Lawrence 

The three eastern rivers afford convenient commu- 
nications with the Province of Lower Canada, but not 
^vith the extensive inland navigation which penetrates 
through the United States, within 200 miles of the 
Mississippi. The North river is a narrow and long 
bay, which, in its course from the harbour of New- 
York, breaks through or turns all the mountains, af- 
fording a tide navigation for vessels of eighty tons, to 
Albany and Troy, nearly 200 miles above New-York. 
In this particular the North river differs from all other 
bays and rivers in the United States ; the tide in no 
other ascends higher than the granite ridge, or comes 
■within thirty miles of the Blue Ridge, or eastern chain 



RESOUKCES OF THE UNITED STATES. '^3 

ot mountains. In the North river it breaks through the 
Blue Ridge at West-Point, and ascends above the 
eastern termination of the CatskiU, or great western 
chain. A few miles above Troy, and the head of the 
tide^ the Hudson from the north, and the Mohawk from 
the west, unite their waters, and form the North river. 
The Hudson, in its course, approaches the waters of 
Lake Champlain, and the Mohawk those of Lake 0«- 
tario. An inland navigation, opened by canals, between 
Lake Champlain and the North river, would divert to 
the city of New- York the trade of one-half of the State 
of Vermont, and of part of the State of New-York, 
which is now principally carried through the St. Law- 
rence and Province of Canada* The works necessary 
to effect water communications between the tide-water 
of the North river, the St. Lawrence, and all the lakes, 
except Lake Superior, would not cost more than five 
millions of dollars. 

The principal interior canals, which have been al~ 
ready completed in the United States, are the Middle- 
sex canal, uniting the waters of the Merrimack river 
with the harbour of Boston, and the Canal Carondelet, 
extending from Bayou St. John to the fortifications oi 
ditch of New-Orleans, and opening an inland communi- 
cation with Lake Pontchartrain. The uniting this 
canal by locks with the Mississippi, would, independ- 
ently of other advantages, enable the general govern- 
ment to transport with facility and effect the same 
naval force for the defence of both the Mississippi and 
Lake Pontchartrain, the two great avenues by which 
New-Orleans may be approached from the sea. 

On the 17th April, 1816, and 15th April, 1817, the 
State Legislature of New-York passed acts, appropriat- 
ing funds for opening navigable communications be- 
tween the Lakes Erie and Champlain and the Atlantic 
ocean, by means of canals connected with the Hudson 
river. This magnificent undertaking is already begun, 
and promises to make effectual progress under the 
auspices of Governor Clinton, who has always been its 
zealous promoter and patron. If ever this magnificent 



34 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STAtE? 

project shall be accomplished, and a communication ac- 
tually opened by canals and locks, between Lake Eiie 
and the navigable waters of Hudson's river, and also 
between Lake Chainplain and those waters, the State 
of New-York will soon become, in itself, a powerful 
empire. 

i'lie completion of the projected canals would secure 
to the people of the United States the entire profits ot 
this branch of home commerce, and give to the general 
government the security and influence connected with a 
thickly settled frontier, and a decided suj^eriority ol 
shipping on the lakes. 

The State of New-York ought never to rest until it 
has accomplished this great object, seeing that its ac- 
complishment will speedily multiply all her resources of 
territory and population. This State contains inex- 
haustible supplies of salt, gypsum, iron ore, and a vast 
variety of other valuable materials for manufacturing 
establishments. Its territory, containing upwards of 
thirty millions of acres, offers to agricultural mdustry a 
rich reward. A river navigation, scarcely paralleled 
in the world, for nearly 200 miles, without interrup- 
tion, and terminating on the seaboard at a port, capa- 
cious, healthy, and easy of access, at all seasons of the 
year ; its interior boundary line passing, more than hall 
its length, through the Avaters of Erie, Ontario, and 
Champlain ; and the numerous navigable lakes included 
within its limits, afford the highest commercial capa- 
bilities and benefits. But the remote sections of the 
eastern and western districts lie neighbouring to the 
British provinces, and are washed by navigable waters, 
which flow into the Atlantic ocean through those pro- 
vinces. Facilitated by the course of their streams, and 
the declivity of their country, the Americans already 
contribute largely to their commerce. And, if not 
prevented, it will become permanent, and number 
among its agents all tliose who live beyond the high- 
lands, in which our rivers, running to the north, ori- 
ginate, including what is now the most fertile, and what 
will soon be the most populous, part of the State. 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES 3.r; 

In addition to recalling to the market of New-York 
the productions of its own soil, now ahenated to Cana- 
da, the construction of these canals would draw to this 
State the trade of the western parts of Vermont, of a 
great portion of Upper Canada, and of the northern 
half of all that vast region of the United States which 
lies west of the Alleghany mountains. The country 
south of the great lakes, alone, includes as many square 
miles as constitute the whole home territory of some of 
the first-rate European powers; and is, perhaps, the 
most fertile part of the globe. That country already 
contains more than a million of souls, and is increasing 
in its population with a rapidity utterly inconceivable 
by the inhabitants of the old and fully peopled districts 
of Europe. The increase of New-England population, 
during the last twenty years, has averaged six per cent, 
annually ; and the surplus thousands of this increase are 
continually migrating to the west. There they are 
joined by a numerous emigration from the Middle and 
Southern States, who, together with them, multiply and 
thrive, in proportion to the means of subsistence pro- 
duced by their common industry. The projected canals 
will open to this immense and rapidly augmenting popu- 
lation a cheaper, safer, and more expeditious road to a 
profitable market, than they can possibly find in any 
other country; and, eventually, render the city of New- 
York the greatest commercial emporium in the world. 

The United States then exhibit a mighty empire, 
covering a greater extent of territory than all Europe, 
and held together by twenty separate State sovereign- 
ties, watching over and regulating, in their executive, 
legislative, and judicial departments, all its municipal 
and local interests; with a Federal head, a oreneral 
government, preserving and directing all its national 
concerns and foreign relations; with a soil, rich in 
all the productions of prime necessity, of convenience, 
and luxury, and capable of sustaining jive hundred 
millions o( people ; a line of seacoast more than two 
thousand miles in extent, and a natural internal na- 
vigation, in itself excellent, and capable of still further 



36 RESOURCES or THE UNITED STATES 

improvement, by the construction of canals, at a com- 
paratively trifling expense ; affording within its capa- 
cious bosom an asylum sufficient to receive all the dis- 
tressed of Europe, and holding out the sure means of 
ample subsistence and perfect independence to every 
one who unites in his own character and conduct the 
qualities of industry, sobriety, perseverance, and in- 
tegrity. For the best mode of location in the boundless 
regions of the Western States and Territories, and for 
the disposition of the public lands, held by the govern- 
ment in trust for the people of the United States, the 
reader may, profitably, consult Mr. Mellish's " Geo- 
graphical Description of the United States ;" Mr. 
Brown's " Western Gazetteer, or Emigrant's Directo- 
ry," and Mr. Darby's " Geographical DcscriiJtion of 
the State of Louisiana, the Southern part of the State 
of Mississippi, and Territory of Alabama:" and for the 
inland navigation of the United Kingdom of Great 
Britain and Ireland, see " Resources of the British 
Empire," pp. 216 — 223, both inclusive. 



CHAPTER II. 



Commerce, SCc. of the United States. 

JaOME few years since, a theory prevailed in this 
country that the United States would become a more 
prosperous and happy nation, if they would forego, 
altogether and for ever, a\[ foreign commerce ; and, as 
a practical commentary upon this text, the general go- 
vernment, at that time wielded by Mr. Jefferson, and 
at his special recommendation, laid an embargo on all 
the American trade with other countries, in the month 
of December, 1807 ; and continued it with various re- 
gulations and enforcements, affecting internal commerce 
also, until the spring of 1 809, a period of eighteen 
months. These " restrictive energies,'''^ (as they were 
vauntingly called by Mr. Jefferson) not only annihila- 
ted the foreign commerce, but also very materially 
crippled the coasting trade of the United States. The 
distress, misery, and ruin, produced by this great agri- 
cultural scheme, not merely to the merchants, but to 
the farmers also, (whose interests it professed to sub- 
serve, but whose property it destroyed by taking away 
the markets for their produce.) was so general, so 
deep, so intolerable, as to prove the entire fallacy 6f 
the theory ; and the American people now appear uri- 
versally to concur in the sentiment publicly pronoun- 
ced by one of the ablest and most efficient practical 
statesmen, who now serve as ornaments and bulwarks 
to the commonwealth ; namely, that " commerce pro- 
tected by a navy, and a navy nourished by commerce," 
is the policy best calculated to render the United States 
a prosperous and powerful empire. 



3g RESOURCES OF THE UMTED STATES. 

The aggregate coramerce of the world, doubtless, 
is increased in consequence of the universal peace esta- 
bhshed in the year 1815; but, as certainly, tne respect- 
ive trade of the United States and Britain has been di- 
minished by that event. Britain has lost her war 
monopoly, and America has ceased to be carrier for the 
world. They are each reduced to the level of peace 
competition ; and must now contend in foreign markets 
with the skill and ingenuity of France and Italy, the 
patient industry and perseverance of the United Nether- 
lands, the rival labours of Denmark, Sweden, Russia, 
and the commercial parts of Germany, to which add 
the efforts of Spain and Portugal. Hence have arisen, 
during the last three years, both in the United States 
and in the British Isles, very general and very grievous 
distress, bankruptcy, and ruin among their merchants, 
manufacturers, and farmers. In Britain the pressure 
has been more severe, on account of the enormous pub- 
lic expenditure, the confined territory, and crowded 
population of her home dominions, which allow no out- 
let for her people, who must, therefore, if not directed 
by their government, and aided to settle in the North 
American colonics or the Cape of Good Hope, or New 
Holland, swarm out hither, to swell the rapid tide of 
our western emigration. 

Nevertheless, so immense is her capital, so excellent 
her manufactures, so persevering the industry of her 
people, so vigorous and all-pervading her government, 
that her foreign trade is rapidly improving, more parti- 
cularly with the Brazils, the Baltic, Italy, and the East- 
Indies. In the most prosperous days her foreign com- 
merce did 7iot make an eleventh part of her home and 
colonial trade ; for the gradual progress and amount 
of the British trade, alike in the Isles, the colonies, and 
all the quarters of the world, for the last hundred years ; 
See the " Resources of the British Empire," pp. 122 
— 140, both inclusive; and pp. 399 — 4.50. 

In the United "States the pressure has been less se- 
vere than in Britain, although the bankruptcies among 
our merchants and manufacturers have been sufficiently 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 39 

numerous and distressing ; and the farmers also have 
suffered greatly for want of a market for their pro- 
duce; nevertheless, the moderate public expenditure, 
the comparatively scanty population, and the immense 
outlet for enterprising mdustry, in the new lands and 
virgin soil of the Western Country, prevent the neces- 
sity of any one, who possesses health and industry, suf- 
fering from absolute want of food, clothing, and lodg- 
ing. The foreign trade of this country is, indeed, at 
present much less than it was previous to the embargo 
system ; but such is the activity, skill, and enterprise 
of the American people, so well built, well navigated, 
and speedy are their ships, and so abundant the soil in 
valuable staples, that she must always averag*e her full 
share of external commerce; and her home trade is con- 
tinually increasing, by the improvement of her internal 
navigation, the variety of her products, and the rapid 
growth of her population, wealth, and intercourse. 1 he 
wages of labour here, average more than double their 
rate in England, and quadruple that in France; and 
land is plentiful, cheap, and fertile ; so that those who 
are straitened and embarrassed in the large cities, have 
only to fall back into the country, and become industri- 
ous yeomen, and they readily provide ample sustenance 
for themselves, and lay a broad and permanent founda- 
tion of independence for their families. 

The reader is referred to the second edition of Mr, 
Pitkin's Statistics for an account of the exports and 
imports, the home and foreign' trade of the United 
States, and the proportions of their external commerce 
with different nations, during a period of nearly one 
hundred and twenty years, mcluding their colonial as 
well as their national existence and commerce. The 
following tables show the amount of American foreign 
trade, in exports and imports, at different periods, in 
order to exhibit the rise and progress, and alternations 
of the commercial career, which this country has run, 
from the year 1700 down to the present time. 



40 



ilEJjOLKCLS OF 1 HE UNITED STATTIfe 



Years. 



Kxports of the 
United States. 



Imports of the 
Ujuted States. 



Average from 1700 to 1710, 
1710 to 1720, 
1720 to 1730, 
1730 to 1740, 
1740 to 1750, 
1750 to 1760, 
1760 to 1770, 
1770 to 1780, 



$1,000,000 
1,700,000 
2,600,000 
2,940,000 
3,120,000 
3,710,000 
4,670,000 
3,100,000 



11,100,000 
1,550,000 
1,980,000 
2,900,000 
3,630,000 
6,160,000 
7,000,000 
5,200,000 



(n 1784. 
1790. 



4,000,0001 18,000,000 
6,000,000! 17.260,000 



Years. 


Total Exports. 


Exports of domestic 
origin. 


Exports of foreign 
origin. 


17Q1 


$19,012,041 
47,989,472 
70,971,780 
55,800,033 

108,343,150 

22,430,960 
66,757,970 

6,927,441 

52,557,753 
81,920,452 






1795 






1800 






1803 


$42,205,961 
48,699,592 

9,433,546 
42,366,675 

6,782,272 

45,974,403 
64,781,896 


$13,594,072 
59,643,558 

12,997,414 

24,391,295 

145,169 
6,583,350 


1807 . .. 


I808,i. e.e7n-} 
bar go year,^ 
1810, cmbar-> 
go off, S 
1814, war} 
with England,) 
1815 


1816 


17,138,555 







Of the domestic exports of the United States the pro- 
portions are; — the produce of agriculture, three- fourths 
in value ; tlie produce of the forest, one-ninth ; of the 
one-fiftf^nth ; and mannfactnres, one-twfntieth. 



sea 



RESOURCES OF THE UxXITED STATES. 4J 

Of the foreign exports, the proportions, in 1 807, (the 
greatest commercial year ever experienced bj the 
United States,) being the year immediately preceding 
the embargo, were ^43,525,320, imported from the 
British Isles ; $3,812,065, from France and her de- 
pendencies; and $11,318,532, from the rest of the 
world. During the years 1802, 1803, and 1804, the 
annual value of the imports into the United States was 
$75,316,937 ; and of the exports, $68,460,000. Of the 
imports the proportions were, 

From Britain $35,970,000 

the northern powers, Prussia, and 

Germany 7,094,000 

Dominions of Holland, France, 

Spain and Italy 25,475,000 

Dominions of Portugal 1 ,083,000 

China, and other native powers of 

Asia 4,856,000 

All other countries 838,000 

Whence it appears that the trade between the Uni- 
ted States and Britain is greater in amount than be- 
tween the United States and all the rest of the world : 
which is a strong reason why the two countries, for 
their mutual benefit, should preserve friendly relations 
towards each other, in the spirit as well as in the letter 
of peace. 

During the same three years, 1802, 1803, and 1804, 
the annual value o{ domestic exports was $39,928,000 
Of which was exported to the British do- 
minions 20,653,000 

To northern powers, Prussia, and 

Germany 2,918,000 

Dominions of Holland, France, 

Spain, and Italy 12,183,000 

Dominions of Portugal 1 ,925,000 

All other countries 2,249.000 

6 



42 RESOURCES OF THE UiNITED STATES. 

The annual value of foreign produce, re-exported to 
all parts of the world, during those three years was, 

828,533,000 
Of which was exported to the British do- 
minions 3,054,000 

To northern powers, Prussia and 

Germany 5,051,000 

Dominions of Holland, France, 

Spain, and Italy 18,495,000 

Dominions of Portugal 396,000 

All other countries 1,537,000 

Annual value of importations being $75,316,000 

exports — domestic 

produce $39,928,000 

foreign produce . . 28,533,000 

$68,461,000 



Apparent balance against the United States, % 6,855,000 



The imports for the year 1807 were, in 

value $138,574,876 

exports — domestic 

produce $48,699,592 

foreign produce .. 59,643,558 

$108,343,150 



Total $246,918,026 



From this great commerce with foreign nations, 
Simounting to nearly two hundred and fifty millions of 
dollars, in one year, together with all the wealth it 
poured into the country, and all the productive industry 
it put in motion, Mr. Jeflerson's embargo cut off the 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 43 

United States ; which, in consequence of our own re- 
strictive energies, the late war with England, and the 
peace diminution, have never yet nearly reached 
that floodtide of trade which was fertilizing and en- 
riching every corner of the Union. For a view of the 
trade of the United States with each country, from the 
commencement of the government, distinguishing the 
trade of the parent country from that of her colonies 
and dependencies, together with a general account of 
the trade of America with each quarter of the world, 
the reader may most profitably consult Mr. Pitkin's 
Statistics of the United States, second edition, begin- 
ning at page 1 83, and continuing to page 290. 

The United States, since the establishment of the 
Federal government, in 1789, up to the commence- 
ment of commercial restrictions, m December, 1807, 
and the war with England, in 1812, increased in wealth 
and population with unexampled rapidity, as appears 
by the great increase of their exports and imports ; of 
the duties on imports and tonnage, and of their com- 
mercial tonnage ; by the accumulation of wealth in all 
their cities, towns, and villages ; by the establishment 
of numerous moneyed institutions; by the great rise ia 
the value of lands; and by various internal improve- 
ments, in the shape of roads, bridges, ferries, and ca- 
nals ; and by their annual consumption of goods in- 
creasing rapidly. For instance, the average yearly 
amount of merchandise, paying duties ad valorem,, con- 
sumed, was, in 

Three years, from 1790 to 1792 ;8! 19,310,801 

Six years, — 1793 to 1798 27,051,440 

Three years, — 1 805 to 1 807 38,549,966 

At least seventy millions of pounds weight of sugar 
are consumed in the United States. In 1810, ten mil- 
hons of pounds were made in the Territory of Orleans, 
now State of Louisiana; and about the same quantity 
made from the maple-tree throughout the United States. 



44 



RESOURCE*; OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Sugar-cane plantations are increasing in Louisiana, and 
tweutj millions of pounds weight of sugar are supposed 
to have been made in 1817. In the State of Georgia 
also, the sugar-cane is cultivated with success. The 
culture of the cane is not more laborious than that of 
cotton, and less liable to accidents; a moderate crop is 
1000 pounds per acre ; and in a (ew years a sufficient 
quantity will, probably, be made within the limits of 
the United States to supply their cousumption. The 
increase of American tonnage is unexampled in the 
history of the commercial world, owing to the increased 
quantity of bulky domestic produce exported, the in- 
crease of population, and extent of the carrying trade. 
The increase of the registered tonnage, or tonnage em- 
ployed in foreign trade, from 1793 to 1801, was 
358,815 tons, having nearly doubled in eight years. 
From 1793 to 18 JO, the increase was 616,535 tons. 
In 1793, the tonnage employed in the coastimr trade, 
was 122,070 tons; in 1801, 274,551 tons. From 1793 
to 1810, the increase was 283,276 tons. The tonnage 
employed in the fisheries, increased from 1793 to 1807, 
about 40,000 tons. 

The whole tonnage of the United States, in 1810, 
was 1,424,780 tons; of which the diilerent States owned 
the following proportions : 



New-Hampshire, Tons 28.017 

Massachusetts 495,203 

Rhode-Island 36,155 

Connecticut 45,108 

New- York 27(5,557 

New-Jersey 43,803 

Pennsylvania 125,430 

Delaware 8,190 



Maryland Tons 143,785 

Virginia 84,923 

North Carolina 39,594 

South Carolina 53,926 

Georgia 15,G19 

Ohio \one. 

New-Orleans , 13,240 



The State of Massachusetts has many hundred miles 
of seacoast, with numerous inlets and harbours; and 
her amount of toiuiage has always been greater than 
that of any other State in the Union. The tonnage of 
the principal seaports, in 1810, was, 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. ^g 

Of Boston Tons 149,121 

New- York 268,548 Second only to thai of London. 

Philadelphia 125,258 

Baltimore 103,444 

Charleston 52,888 

Now, in 1817, the whole tonnage employed in fo- 
reign trade is much less than it was in 1810. So much 
has peace all over the world lessened the external com- 
merce of the United States. The tonnage of Britain 
has not grown with a rapidity equal to that of America; 
for, in 1700, it was only, tons 273,693; in 1750, tons 
690,798; in 1800, tons 1,269,329; in 1813, tons 
1,579,715. In 1787, France owned only 300,000 tons, 
in her foreign trade; in 1800, only 98,304 tons. In 
1804, the nations round the Baltic, including Norway 
and Holstein, owned only 493,417 tons, not half the 
tonnage of the United States. 

The extensive and rapidly increasing coasting trade, 
as well as the fisheries of the United States, will not 
only augment the wealth and comfort of the American 
people, but will always ensure a large body of excel- 
lent seamen for the supply of the navy, when wanted. 
The American navy, formerly proscribed as a burden 
and curse to the country, seems at length to have 
fought itself into favour with all parties. Its heroic 
achievements and splendid success, during the late war 
with England, and its present commanding attitude in 
the Mediterranean, have elevated the character of the 
country, and conferred an imperishable glory upon its 
own name ; and justly claims the support and honour 
of the government and people, both in peace and in 
war, now and for ever. The American navy consists 
of nearly one hundred ships, brigs, and schooners, be- 
sides small sloops, and gun-boats — of which nine are 
rated at seventy-four, but carry ninety guns; ten, forty- 
four guns ; one, thirty-eight guns ; two thirty-six guns ; 
two, thirty-two guns, and thirty, from twenty-eight to 
sixteen guns. The actual number far exceeds the rate 
of guns in all the classes of vessels. Congress has 



^g RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

made ample appropriations for the annual increase of 
the navy ; so that the United States, in all probability, 
will soon be able to send out fleets sufficiently nume- 
rous to cope with any European power, for the mastery 
of that element, whose dominion invariably confers a 
paramount influence among all the sovereignties of the 
earth. The number of naval officers, at the com- 
mencement of the last war, were 13 captains, 9 mas- 
ters commanding, and 70 lieutenants. The promo- 
tions during the war were 1 b captains, 28 masters com- 
manding, and 120 lieutenants. The promotions since 
the peace have been 10 captains, 19 masters command- 
ing, and 68 lieutenants. 

An almost universal notion prevails in this country, 
that the commerce of the United States will be pro- 
digiously benefited by the emancipation of the Spanish 
American colonies, and throwing open their trade to 
the world. But this is at least problematical, because 
those immense regions produce all the staples of the 
United States, and many more also, and would find, in 
the event of their emancipation and free trade, a more 
profitable market in Britain than in the United States ; 
and in return, England could supply them with manu- 
factured goods, better in quality, more abundant in 
quantity, and at a lower rate, than any other country 
can possibly do. A proof of this is to be found in the 
fact, that the influx of British goods into the United 
States, since the peace of 1815, has destroyed or sus- 
pended a great portion of our American manufacturing 
establishments ; a fortiori, then, American cannot con- 
fend with British manufactures in foreign markets, see- 
ing that they are beat in the unequal competition at 
home, upon their own ground, although aided by pro- 
tecting duties. 

It a[)poars somewhat doubtful, whether the Spanish 
colonies, unassisted by any other power, will be able, 
eventually, to shake off* the yoke of Old Spain; for, 
during nearly ten years of revolutionary movements, 
they do not seem to have shown the intelligence, skill, 
reflection, forecast, combination, and perseverance, re- 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. ^fj, 

qufsite to establish a free government. The hands of 
England, probably, are tied up by the Treaty of Vi- 
enna; and the United States government do not seem dis- 
posed to interfere, as they passed an Act of Congress, a 
lew months since, forbidding the transportation of men, 
and arms, and ammunition, from our American ports to 
aid the revolted colonies. The President, in his Message 
of the 2d of December, 18 (7, states, that our citizens 
sympathize with the Spanish Americans, but the United 
States government have maintained, and will continue 
to maintain, a strict neutrality between the contending 
parties, keeping their ports open to both, and seeking 
no exclusive commercial advantage from the colonies, 
if they shall become independent. Nevertheless, the 
United States government have ordered the settlements 
on Amelia Island, at the mouth of St. Mary's river, 
near the boundary of Georgia, and at Galvestown, in 
the Gulf of Mexico, made by the Spanish Americans, to 
be broken up by our troops ; and have sent commis- 
sioners along the southern coast of Spanish America, to 
communicate with the existing authorities, and claim 
redress for past and prevention of future injuries. 
France and Spain both materially assisted the American 
colonies in their revolt from the mother country ; and, 
doubtless, a«y government, whether military, or mo- 
narchical, or republican, provided the Hispano- Ameri- 
cans could estabhsh their own national sovereignty and 
independence, would be infinitely preferable to the co- 
lonial system of old Spain. A system which enslaves 
both body and mind, and debases the human animal 
below the condition of the brutes that perish. In all 
probability, if their national independence were once 
fixed, in whatever form, and under how many sove- 
reignties soever, the felicitous contagion of liberty 
would spread from the United States, and gradually 
improve the spirit, and Hberalize the character and 
conduct of the new-born dynasties. 

The reader may find considerable information on this 
subject, by consuhing the " Outline of the Revolution 
in Spanish America, &;c." by a South American, first 



43 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

published in London, and republished in New-York, 
in November, 1817. This work gives a full and fair 
account of the origin, progress, and actual state of the 
war between Spain and Spanish America, down to the 
close of the year 1816. Tlie "Letter to Mr. Monroe," 
on the Spanish American revolution, supposed to be 
written by Mr. H. Brackenridge, is an able and spirited 
performance; it advises our government to acknowledge 
the independence of the Hispano-American provinces, 
as soon as they become independent de facto ; but not 
to go to war with Spain on their account ; nor to aid 
them with men, money, arms, or ammunition. See also 
a very able article in the Quarterly Review, for No- 
vember, 1817, respecting Spain and her colonies; in 
which the writer maintains it to be the duty of Britain, 
either to observe a strict neutrality or to mediate ami- 
cably between the contending parties. This article 
contains much valuable information respecting Spanish 
America, and some profound and accurate observations 
on the ditferent characteristics of its population and of 
that of the United States. 

The advantages of the emancipation of Spanish Ame- 
rica will pervade the whole w^orld; but, in the first 
instance, will be more particularly directed towards 
Enofland. The liberation of this immense region from 
colonial bondage has engaged the attention of some of 
the most distinguished statesmen, in this country and in 
Europe. Early in the first revolutionary war, a Jesuit, 
born in Arequipa, in the province of Peru, addressed the 
Spanish colonists, and called upon them to establish a 
free and independent government, which might at once 
secure their own prosperity and happiness, and open a 
liberal intercourse of reciprocal benefits with the rest 
of the world. This enlightened ecclesia.-tic, who ex- 
hibits an intimate acquaintance with the most approved 
principles of political philosophy, died in London, in 
1798, and left his manuscript papers in the hands of the 
Honourable Rufus King, at that time minister in Britain, 
from the United States. Some part of these papers 
was afterward printed, through the intervention of 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 49 

General Miranda, for the purpose of being distributed 
among his countrymen, previous to his unsuccessful ex- 
pedition, in 1806. 

Perhaps the greatest commercial benefit, resulting 
from the emancipation of Spanish America, would be 
the formation of a navigable passage across the isthmus 
of Panama, the junction of the Atlantic and Pacific 
oceans. The expense of such an undertaking would 
not exceed three or four millions sterling ; and Britain 
could not more profitably employ twenty or thirty 
thousand of her distressed labourers than in executing 
such a task, under the superintendance of competent 
engineers. The completion of this navigation would 
give England the command of the commerce of the 
whole world, and soon compensate her for all the toil, 
and wealth, and blood, which she has expended during 
twenty-five years of unexampled warfare, waged for 
the redemption of Europe from revolutionary bondage. 

In the year 1790, the scheme of Spanish American 
emancipation was first proposed to Mr. Pitt by General 
Miranda, and met with a cordial reception; but was 
soon afterward laid aside, on account of Britain and 
Spain resuming their pacific relations with each other. 
In the year 1797, Miranda was met at Paris by depu- 
ties and commissioners from Mexico and the other prin- 
cipal provinces of Spanish America, for the purpose of 
concerting with him the means of emancipating their 
country. It was decided that Miranda should, in their 
name, repair to England, and communicate their pro- 
positions to the British government ; one of which w^as 
to join the Atlantic and Pacific at the expense of the 
colonies, and another to cede the Floridas to the United 
States, the Mississippi being proposed as the boundary 
between the two nations; and the stipulation of a small 
military force, from the anglo-Araericans, to aid the es- 
tablishment of the proposed independence. It was 
also proposed to resign all the islands which belong to 
the Spaniards, excepting Cuba; the possession of Avhicli 
is rendered necessary by the situation of the Havanna, 
commanding the passage from the Gulf of Mexico. This 

7 



yO RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

document is dated at Paris, 22d of December, 1797. 
The proposal ibr the return of Miranda to England 
was acceded to by Mr. Pitt, with whom a conference 
was lield in January following. It was proposed that 
the United States should furnish ten thousand troops; 
and the British government agreed to find money and 
ships. But Mr. Adams, then the American President, 
declined to transmit an immediate answer; and the 
measure was, in consequence, postponed. In the year 
1806, Mr. Jeiferson, at that time President of the Uni- 
ted States, disavowed the expedition of Miranda to 
emancipate Spanish America, and actually caused 
Messrs. Smith and Ogden, two merchants of the city 
of New-York, to be indicted in the Circuit Court for tlus 
District for aiding and abetting Miranda's enterprise ; 
but the Jury found a verdict of acquittal. For a most 
ample and splendid account of the practicability and 
eifects of liberating Spanish America, and joining the 
two oceans, see the thirteenth volume of the Edinburgh 
RevicAV, pp. 277 — 311, both inclusive. 

It appears necessary for England, now, to make 
some extraordinary effort to recruit her exhausted 
strength, and to relieve her present pressure. She has, 
indeed, during the lapse of five and twenty years, di- 
rected, with a daring and a steady hand, the vast re- 
sources of her mighty empire, against the common ene- 
my of the human race ; with the guardianship of pre- 
siding genius, she has aided the weak and restrained 
the encroachments of the strong : she has assisted the 
jDCop/c of continental Europe in tneir patriotic efTorts to 
trample beneath their feet the foreign domination of an 
invading foe ; she has caused the star of Napoleon to 
fade into a dim tinct ; she has put together the glitter- 
ing fragments of disjointed Europe, and given again to 
that fair portion of the world the beamings of religion, 
the light of morals, and the beauty of social order. But 
her recent glories have led her to a painful pre-emi- 
nence; henceforth she is doomed to the proud but me- 
lancholy necessity of being Jirst, or nothing. The mo- 
ment she recedes — the moment she bows her lofty head 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



51 



beneath the ascendancy of any other nation — that mo- 
ment she is dashed from oif her wide ambitious base, 
and falls, hke Lucifer, never to rise again. In her late 
protracted conflict, her frame has been shattered ; her 
finances are dilapidated ; her agriculture languishes ; 
her manufactures droop; her commerce is diminished; 
her population is impoverished ; and, if she hopes to 
sustain that high eminence which her achievements 
have reached, in the times of Elizabeth, of William, and 
of her present sovereign — achievements which have ren- 
dered her the arbl tress of Europe, the bulwark of 
civil and religious liberty, and the tutelary angel of 
man ; she must hasten to emancipate the Spanish Ame- 
rican colonists, and unite the waters of the Atlantic and 
Pacific oceans. Unless some measures be adopted 
by Britain to employ and relieve her superabundant 
and indigent population, a much greater proj ortlon than 
has ever yet left her native isles will find their way 
hither, to augment the number of our Ameri a.i citizens. 



CHAPTER III. 



On the Manufactures of the United States.. 

3. HERE can be no doubt that agriculture has a tenden- 
cy to [)roduce a more abundant and more healthy popu- 
lation than that which springs from mamifactures ; but 
agriculture and manufactures act and react upon each 
other for their mutual benefit. For the greatest and 
most important branch of the commerce of every nation 
is that which is carried on by the inhabitants of the 
towns and cities with those of the country. The 
townsmen draw from the people of the country the 
rude produce, the fruits of the soil, for which they pay 
by sending back into the country a part of this rude 
produce manufactured and prepared for immediate use. 
Or, in other words, this trade between town and coun- 
try consists in a given quantity of rude produce being 
exchanged for a given quantity of manufactured pro- 
duce. Whatever, therefore, has a tendency, in any 
country, to diminish the progress of manufactures, has 
also a tendency to diminish tlie home market, (the most 
important of all markets for the rude produce of land) 
and consequently to cripple the efforts of agriculture. 

In young and lately established countries, however, 
where the population is wo^ as yet, sufficiently nume- 
rous to answer fully the demand for labour, it is perhaps 
more adviseable to confme their attention chiefly to the 
raising of rude produce, to the clearing new lands, and 
cultivating those already reclaimed; because they can 
import manufactured goods from an old and thickly 
peopled country, at a cheaper rate than they can fabri- 
cate them in their own; and they will more rapidly in- 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



53 



crease the number, strength, and wealth of their people 
by so doing, than by consuming a larger quantity' of 
capital in forming manufactured goods of a worse quality, 
and at a higher price than that for which they can bring 
them from abroad. Besides, as the wages of labour 
are so high, and land so cheap, in the I nited States, 
(and in all new countries,) there is a continual bounty 
offered to labourers to leave their manufacturing masters, 
and go and buy land, and till it for themselves; since 
every man, who has any proper feeling of independence 
beating: at his heart, would rather toil for himself and 
his family, as an uncontrolled yeoman, than labour as 
a confined servant to a stranoer. Whence the manu- 
facturers would be (as indeed they are daily and hourly 
in the United States,) liable to frequent interruptions in 
their proceedings, and suffer much prejudice in their 
trade, enhancing the price and deteriorating the quality 
of their wares ; all which evil must ultimately fall upon 
the consumers, and necessarily entail a burdensome im- 
pediment upon the productive exertions of the com- 
munity. 

The United States, therefore, it should seem, would 
do well not anxiously to endeavour to force the produc- 
tion of manufactures by government bounties, by pro- 
tecting or prohibitory duties, by monopoly prices, be- 
fore an effectual demand shall be made for them by an 
increased density of population along the seaboard, and 
in the interior ; by the more minute division of labour, 
and by the more complete filling up of the other channels 
of trade and agriculture. Nay, perhaps it would be 
wiser, for some years yet to come, (until the Avilderness 
be reclaimed, and the population be more compact,) for 
the Americans to confine themselves chiefly to the rais- 
ing of raw materials, and let Europe continue to be the 
"Workshop where those raw materials might be manu- 
factured ; because experience has uniformly shown that 
no nation has ever yet pushed its manufactures to any 
great extent, without introducing and continuing a very 
alarming quantity of misery and disease, decrepitude, 
rice, and profligacy among the lower orders of the peo- 



54 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



pie ; and this, to the statesman who measures the 
strength and greatness of a nation by the heahh and 
virtue, the prosperity and happiness of its citizens, 
seems too great a price to pay for the privilege of manu- 
facturing a few yards of broadcloth, or a few pieces of 
muslin. England herself is a portentous illustration of 
this truth ; now, at this moment, and for the last five 
and twenty years, her manufacturing districts have sent 
forth, and are issuing out full bands of Luddites, and 
Spenseans, and jacobins, and anarchists, and rebels, and 
assassins; that continually put to the test the strength, 
and strain the nerves of her government. See the 
" Resources of the British Empire," pp. 140 — 154, for 
the state of British manufactures. 

But as the introduction of manufactures into, and 
their extended increase in a country, generally promise 
large profits to speculators and capitalists, it is not to 
be expected that the mere circumstance of manufac- 
tures being destructive of the virtue, health, and happi- 
ness of the labourers employed in them, will ever be of 
sufficient weight to deter any nation from introducing 
and establishing these nurseries of individual wealth, 
and wide-spread poverty, among themselves, whenever 
an opportunity shall occur. The wages of labour in 
the United States are at least one hundred per cent, 
higher than in England, and quadruple those of France ; 
and yet the agricultural products of this country find a 
profitable market in Europe. While the expense of 
erecting and continuing manufacturing establishments 
is such as, in many instances, to disable them from com- 
peting with those of Europe, unless protected by boun- 
ties, prohibitory duties, and a monopoly. The cause 
of these apparently contradictory effects is to be found 
in the vast quantity and low price of our new and fertile 
lands. One man is able to spread his agricultural 
labour over a much wider surface of soil in the immense 
regions of America, than can be done in the compara- 
tively small and circumscribed districts into which the 
European farms are necessarily divided, on account oi 
the narrow limits of territory, coupled with a crowded 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 55 

population. Hence, although the system of agriculture 
m the United States is less perfect, and less productive 
on a given quantity of ground than in some parts of 
Europe ; yet the far wider range of land under cultiva- 
tion (about three times as many acres as make up the 
whole superficies of the British isles,) produces annually 
a more abundant crop, in mass, to the industry of a 
given number of proprietors. 

Formerly some of our leading politicians professed to 
think it more adviseable for the United States to prose- 
cute the labours of agriculture, than to attempt to force 
manufactures into a premature and pernicious existence. 
Mr. Jefferson, in his " Notes on Virginia," strenuously 
labours this point, and pathetically deprecates the hour 
when the American people shall be converted from ro- 
bust and virtuous farmers into sickly and profligate 
manufacturers. But he has lately altered his opinion, 
as appears from his recent letter to the Secretary of 
the Society for encouraging American Manufactures, in 
which he seems to have forgotten all his former excla- 
mations in favour of agriculture, and ail his " J eremiades^'' 
against manufactures. In order to accomplish their 
purpose, this Society, consisting of manufacturers all 
over the Union, is continually beseeching and besieging 
Congress to exclude all foreign goods from the United 
States, and give them a monopoly of the American mar- 
ket; that is, in other words, to lay a heavy tax upon all 
the other classes of the community, the farmers, clergy, 
lawyers, merchants, physicians, and all the labouring 
orders, that a few manufacturers, about a hundredth part 
of the whole population, may enrich themselves by sell- 
ing to their fellow-citizens bad goods, at a much greater 
price than they could import far better commodities 
from Europe. 

This is, in fact, checking the growth of the wealth 
and population of the United States, by at least all the 
difference betwen the monopoly price of. American 
manufactures and. the fair competition price of imported 
European goods ; to do which might, indeed, be very 
good patriotism, but it is certainly very bad policy. The 



56 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

United States having but recently commenced their na- 
tional career, and looking forward to many ages of im- 
provement and growth, should be, above all other 
countries, particularly careful to avoid the errors of the 
European mercantile system; errors which sprang up 
amidst the darkness and ignorance of feudal despotism; 
and which all the most distinguished political philoso- 
phers of the present age unite to condemn. The United 
States, therefore, should resolutely cast from olf their 
shoulders all the shackles of bounties, protections, pro- 
hibitions, and monopolies; and permit agriculture, com- 
merce, and manufactures to find the legitimate level of 
unimpeded competition, and to employ just so much of 
the productive industry and capital of the country as 
individual inclination and interest might require ; with- 
out any interference on the part of the government, 
which ever acts the wisest part, when it suffers all the 
various classes of the community to manage their own 
affairs in their own way. Laissez nous fairc was the re- 
ply of the French merchants to M. Colbert, when he 
attempted to build up the dilapidated commerce of 
France, by ministerial intermeddling with what no 
minister can possibly either direct or understand, so 
•well as the merchants themselves. 

Besides, every free country manufactures as fast as 
its wants and interests demand; because every coun- 
try, as well as every individual, prefers a home to a fo- 
reign market, for the purposes of barter, sale, and 
purchase. Nevertheless, the interests of agriculture 
are quite inadequate to contend with the spirit of en- 
croachment and monopoly so inherent in the very na- 
ture of manufactures. Manufacturers enjoy a great 
advantage over the farmers, who are scattered thinly 
throughout the country, in the facility of combining to- 
gether, and acting in large bodies, so as to compel the 
government to listen to their complaints. Their stand- 
ing connniUees, and eternal clamour about the dignity 
of patriotism, and the necessity of not depending on 
foreign nations for articles of use and convenience, are 
always an overmatch fur the yeomen, who, widely 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 07 

^separated from each other, cannot act in such close 
concert, nor with such efficient activity and perse- 
verance. Add to which, many of the Members of Con- 
gress, themselves farmers, and therefore peculiarly re- 
presenting the agricultural interests, are deeply en- 
gaged in manufactures and banks; whence they are not 
so clear-sighted to the evils of a monopoly, on the part 
of the manufacturers, as they otherwise might be. 

During the late war with England, manufactures 
thrived in the United States, precisely because they 
had a monopoly of the home market, and compelled 
the consumer to pay above a hundred per cent, more 
for goods of an inferior quality to those which might 
have been imported from Europe, at half the price, if 
our ports had been open for the admission of foreign 
commodities. At that period there was a capital of 
about ;S 1 ,000,000,000 employed in carrying on American 
manufactures ; but on the return of peace, the influx of 
European goods reduced the price to at least one half, 
and stopped perhaps more than half of the manufactur- 
ing establishments in the Union ; so that the capital 
now employed in American manufactories scarcely 
reaches the sum of five hundred millions of dollars. 
Nevertheless, our manufacturers are convinced, that 
continuing this war monopoly, and compelling the Ame- 
rican people to pay a double price for all their articles 
of consumption, would materially promote the national 
welfare of the United States. Whether or not the 
general government is to be borne down by this inces- 
sant clamour, and sacrifice the interests of all the rest of 
the community to those of a very small portion of that 
community, remains yet to be seen. The President, in 
his Message of the 2d of December, says, " Our manu- 
factures will require the continued attention of Con- 
gress ; the capital employed in them is considerable, 
and the knowledge acquired in the machinery and fabric 
of all the most useful manufactures is of great value ; 
their preservation, which depends on due encoiiragement, 
is connected with the high interests of the nation." 

8 



58 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Few nations, however, can boast of skill and inge- 
nuity in manufactures, and especially, improvements in 
labour-saving machinery, equal to those which have 
been exhibited and discovered in the progress of the 
mechanical arts in the United States. The causes of 
this superior ingenuity and skill are various. The high 
price of labour, and the comparative scarcity of labour- 
ers, offer a continual bounty of certain and immediate 
remuneration to all those who shall succeed in the con- 
struction of any machinery that may be substituted in 
the place of human labour. Add to this, the entire 
freedfom of vocation enjoyed by every individual in this 
country. Here there are no compulsory apprenticeships ; 
no town and corporation restraints, tying each man 
down to his own peculiar trade and calling, as in Eu- 
rope — the whole, or nearly the whole of which still la- 
bours under this remnant of feudal servitude. In the 
United States every man follows whatevei- pursuit, and 
in whatever place, his inchnation, or opportunity, or in- 
terest, prompts or permits ; and consequently a much 
greater amount of active talent and enterprise is em- 
ployed in individual undertakings here than in any other 
country. Many men in the United States follow various 
callings, either in succession or simultaneously. One 
and the same person sometimes commences his career 
as a farmer, and, before he dies, passes through the 
several stages of a lawyer, clergyman, merchant, con- 
gressman, soldier, and diplomatist. There is also a 
constant migration hither of needy and desperate talent 
from Europe, which helps to swell the aggregate ol 
American ingenuity and invention — and the European 
discoveries in art and science generally reach the 
United States within a few months alter they first see 
the light in their own country, and soon become amal- 
gamated with those made by Americans themselves. 

For information respecting the manufactures of the 
United States, the reader is referred to General Hamil- 
ton's " Report on the subject of Manufactures," made 
in the year 1791, when he was Secretary of the Trea- 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. ^9 

sury, in consequence of an order of the House of Re- 
presentatives. It is not too much to say, that this is 
one of the ablest State-Papers which ever came from 
the pen of man. See also the list of American patent^, 
published by order of Congress; Mr. Tench Coxe's 
'^ View of the United States;" Mr. Fessenden's "Re- 
gister of the Arts;" Dr. Redman Coxe's " Emporium 
of the Arts and Sciences," and Mr. Pitkin's " Statistics 
of the United States." 

The following very slight summary of American ma- 
nufactures is all that the limits of the present work will 
allow. 

What the present annual value of manufactures in 
the United States is, has not been ascertained; but, 
before the peace of 1815, had reduced their monopoly 
price, and diminished the number of manufacturing 
establishments, their yearly value was estimated thus : 

Manufactures of Wood ;S 25,000,000 

Leather 24,000,000 

Soap and Tallow Candles 10,000,000 

Spermaceti Candles & Oil 500,000 

Refined Sugar 1 ,600,000 

Cards 300,000 

Hats 1 3,000,000 

Spirituous and malt liquors 14,000,000 

Iron 18,000,000 

Cotton, Wool, and Flax . . 45,000,000 

Making a total of. $151,400,000 

Of this amount nearly the whole is consumed at 
home, as appears from the following table of exports : 



60 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 





EXPORTS OF MAJVUFACTURES. 




Year.. 


From doinpstic mate- 
rial«i. 


From forpig;n mate- 
rials. 


Total of both. 


1803 


S 790.000 


g 565,000 


g 1.350.000 


1804 


1,650,000 


450,000 


2,100,000 


1805 


1,579,000 


721,000 


2,300,000 


1806 


1,889,000 


818.000 


2,707,000 


1807 


1,652,000 


468,000 


2,120,000 


1808 


309,000 


35,000 


344,000 


1809 


1,266,000 


240,000 


1,506,000 


1810 


1,359,000 


558,000 


1,917,000 


1811 


2,062,000 


314,000 


2,376,000 


1812 


1,135,000 


220,000 


1,353,000 


1813 


372,000 


18,000 


390,000 


1814 


233,200 


13,100 


246,000 


1815 


1,321,000 


232,000 


1,553,000 


1816 


1,415,000 


340,000 


1,755,000 



The manufactures from foreign materials are, spirits 
from molasses; refined sugar; chocolate; gunpowder; 
brass and copper, and medicines. The manufacture of 
wool is extending rapidly- in the United States. The 
Merino breed thrives well in this climate, and their 
number is augmenting fast throughout the Union. The 
whole number of sheep already reaches nearly twenty 
millions, and is contiimally increasing. The British 
Isles maintain about thirty millions of sneep ; only one- 
third more than the American sheep, of all kinds, taken 
together — and the United States can easily support 
twenty times their present number. In the articles of n'on 
and hemp, and more especially hemp, the United States, 
probably, will soon be independent of Russia and the 
rest of the world. The culture of hemp succeeds in 
many parts of the Union, especially in Kentucky, which, 
in one year, produced upwards of one hundred and 
twenty thousand hundred-weight, valued at S>'700,000, 



RESOURCES OF THE UJ^^ITED STATES. Qf 

and made also, in the same year, fortj thousand hundred- 
weight of cordage, valued at $400,000, making a mil- 
lion and one hundred thousand dollars for these two 
articles. The manufacture of cotton increases rapidly 
here ; and the quantity consumed in the country, on the 
average of the years 1811, 1812, and 1813, exceeds 
twenty millions of pounds weight. 

The manufactures of wood are household furniture, 
carriages of every kind, and ship-building, and pot and 
pearl ashes. The manufactures of leather are boots, 
shoes, harness, and saddles. Soap and tallow candles 
are manufactured both in establishments and in fami- 
lies. Cotton, wool, and flax are manufactured both 
in establishments and in families. Iron abounds in 
the United States; fifty thousand tons of bar iron are 
consumed annually, of which forty thousand are ma- 
nufactured at home, and ten thousand imported. 
Sheet, slit, and hoop iron are almost wholly of home 
manufacture; as are cut nails, three hundred tons of 
which are annually exported. Cutlery, and the finer 
specimens of hardware and steel work, are still im- 
ported from Britain. Of the copper and brass manu- 
factured, the zinc is chiefly, and the copper wholly, im- 
ported. Of the tin ware, the sheets are all imported. 
Lead is made into shot ; and colours of lead, red and 
white lead, are imported to a large amount. Plated 
ware is made in large quantities in Philadelphia, New- 
York, Boston, Baltimore, and Charleston. The manu- 
facture of gunpowder nearly supplies the home market, 
as do coarse earthenware, window glass, glass bottles, 
and decanters. About a million bushels of salt are 
manufactured annually, and three times that quantity 
imported. White crockery ware is said to be made in 
Philadelphia of as good quality as any in England. 

Saltpetre is manufactured largely in Virginia, Ken- 
tucky, Massachusetts, East and West Tennesse. Su- 
far from the maple-tree is produced in Ohio, Kentucky, 
ermont, and East Tennessee, to the amount of nearly 
ten millions of pounds weight annually. West Tennes- 
see and Vermont afford abundance of good copperas. 



Q2 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Twenty-five millions of gallons of ardent spirits are 
annually distilled, and annually consumed in the United 
States. Four hundred water and horse-mills, working 
one hundred and twenty thousand spindles, are em- 
ployed in spinning cotton. The fulling-mills amount to 
two thousand; and the number of looms exceeds four 
hundred thousand, and the number of yards of cloth, 
manufactured from wool, cotton, and flax, is about one 
hundred millions. There are three hundred gunpow- 
der-mills ; six hundred furnaces, forges, and bloomeries, 
and two hundred paper-mills. 

In the State of Vermont the chief manufactures are 
of iron, lead, pipe-clay, marble, distilleries, maple-sugar, 
flour, and wool. In Massachusetts, the principal ma- 
nufactures are duck, cotton, woollen, cut-nails, (by a 
machine invented in Newburyport, and capable of cut- 
ting two hundred thousand in a day.) paper, cotton 
and wool cards, playing cards, shoes, silk and thread 
lace, wire, snuff", oil, chocolate and powder-mills, iron- 
works, and slitting-mills, and mills for sawing lumber, 
grinding grain, and fulling cloth, distilleries, and glass. 
In Rhode-Island are manufactured cotton, linen, and 
tow cloth, iron, rum, spirits, paper, wool and cotton 
cards, spermaceti, sugar, machines for cutting screws, 
and furnaces for casting hollow-ware. In Connecticut 
are manufactured silk, wool, card-teeth, (bent and cut 
by a machine to the number of eighty-six thousand in 
an hour,) buttons, linen, cotton, glass, snuff", powder, 
iron, paper, oil, and very superior fire-arms. In New- 
York are manufactured wheel carriages of all kinds, 
the common manufactories, refined sugar, potter's ware, 
umbrellas, musical instruments, glass, iron, and steam- 
boats. In New-Jersey are numerous tanneries, leather 
manufactories, iron-works, powder-mills, cotton, paper, 
copper mines, lead mines, stone and slate quarries. In 
Pennsylvania there are valuable collieries on the Lehigh 
river, distilleries, rope-walks, sugar-houses, hairpowder 
manufactories, iron founderies, shot manufactories, 
steam-efigines, mill machinery, the pneumatic cock for 
tapping air-tight casks, hydrostatic blow-pipe, type- 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. gg 

founderies, improvements in printing, and a carpet 
manufactory. In Delaware there are cotton and bolt- 
ing-cloth and powder manufactories, fulling, snuff, slit- 
ting^ paper, grain, and saw-mills. In Maryland are 
iron-works, collieries, grist-mills, glass-works, stills, pa- 
per-mills, and cotton. In Virginia there are lead-mines, 
which yield abundantly, iron mines, copper mines, vast 
collieries, and marble quarries. In Kentucky are ma- 
nufactured cotton, wire, paper, and oil. In Ohio ship- 
building is carried to a great extent ; indeed, in this 
branch of manufactures the Americans generally surpass 
the mechanics of all other countries. In North Caro- 
lina the pitch-pine affords excellent pitch, tar, turpen- 
tine, and lumber ; there are also iron-works, and a 
gold mine, which has furnished the Mint of the United 
States with a considerable quantity of virgin gold. In 
South Carolina there are gold, silver, lead, blacklead. 
copper and iron mines, as also pellucid stones of differ- 
ent hues, coarse cornelian, variegated marble, nitrous 
stone and sand, red and yellow ochres, potter's clay, 
fuller's earth, and a number of die-stuffs, chalk, crude 
alum, sulphur, nitre, and vitriol. In Georgia the ma- 
nufactures are indigo, silk, and sago. In Louisiana are 
manufactured cotton, wool, cordage, shot, and hair- 
powder. 

Of the many places in the Union well adapted for 
manufacturing establishments, it is sufficient, at present, 
to notice the few following : — The town of Patterson, 
in the State of New-Jersey, is, perhaps, as excellently 
situated for this purpose as any spot in the world. The 
falls of the Passaic river afford every convenience that 
water can give to put in motion machinery to any ex- 
tent. In 1791, a Manufacturing Company was incorpo- 
rated by the New-Jersey Legislature, with great privi- 
leges. A subscription for the encouragement of every 
kind of manufacture was opened, under the patronage 
of the Secretary of State ; five hundred thousand dol- 
lars were subscribed, and works erected at the falls of 
the Passaic. During the late war, the Patterson manu- 
factures flourished, and were rendered profitable to the 



g4 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

proprietors by their monopoly price. Since the peac6 
they have declined considerably ; but there still remain 
some valuable coHon and paper manufactories ; and so 
admirable is the situation of the place, that manufac- 
tures cannot fail to flourish there as fast and as abundantly 
as the wants, and inclination, and interest of the United 
States demand. The manufacture of sugar, from the 
cane, thrives well ; and is increasing rapidly in Louisi- 
ana and Georgia. 

There is no part of the world, probably, where, in 
proportion to its population, a greater number of inge- 
nious mechanics may be found than in the city of Phila- 
delphia, and its immediate neighbourhood ; or where, 
in proportion to the capital employed, manufactures 
thrive better; and certainly, more manufacturing capi- 
tal is put in motion in that than in any other city of the 
Union. The town of Wilmington, and its vicinity, in 
the State of Delaware, are, for their size, the greatest 
seats of manufactures in the United States ; and are 
capable of much improvement, the country being hilly 
and abounding with running w^ater. The Brandywine 
river might, at a comparatively small expense, be car- 
ried to the top of the nill on which Wilmington is situa- 
ted, and make a fall sufficient to supply fifty mills, in 
addition to those already built. The town of Pitts- 
burgh, in the State of Pennsylvania, situated beyond 
the Alleghany hills, on the confluence of the Mononga- 
hela and Alleghany rivers, where their junction forms 
the Ohio, promises, in the course of a few years, to be- 
come the Birmingham of America. It has coal in all 
abundance, and of a very superior quality ; its price is 
not quite three pence sterling a bushel. It is supposed 
that the whole tract of country between the Lain'cl 
Mountain, Mississippi, and Ohio, yields coal. Pitts- 
burgh, in addition to various other manufactures, is said 
to make glass bottles, tumblers, and decanters, of equal 
(juallty to any that are imported from Europe. It has 
an inland navigation, interrupted only by the falls at 
Louisville, of two thousand lour hundred miles down 
the Ohio and Mississippi to New-Orleans, and an inex- 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. gg 

haustible market for its manufactures in all the States 
and settlements on the borders of those mighty rivers. 
But the most extraordinary, and most important 
manufacture in the United States, and perhaps in the 
world, is that of steamboats ; for an interesting and in- 
structive account of which the reader is referred to Mr. 
Coiden's valuable Life of Mr. Fulton. A very few facts 
and observations are all that can find a place here. 
Without entering into the dispute, respecting the 
mechanicians who first applied the force of steam to 
the purposes of navigation, it is certain that no one 
applied \i successfully^ prior to Mr. Fulton ; the proof of 
which is to be found in the fact, that since the accom- 
plishment of his scheme in the United States, the use of 
steamboats has become common in Europe; whereas, 
before that period, the attempts to propel boats by 
steam, in that quarter of the world, were eminently 
vain and fruitless. Great numbers of steamboats have 
been launched in Britain within a iew years past; yet 
the principles on which they are navigated, do not ap- 
pear to be fully understood in that country, if we may 
judge from the accounts given by those who have seen 
and travelled in them, and by some recent publications 
on this subject. In the year 1807, the first steamboat 
plied between the cities of New-York and Albany; and 
since that time, this mode of navigation has been used 
with great success in many other rivers of the Union 
besides the Hudson: nay, steamboats now ascend the 
Mississippi and Ohio rivers, hitherto nearly unnavigable, 
except in the direction of their currents. The facihty, 
economy, and despatch of travelling, are all wonderfully 
augmented by steam navigation, the same distance being 
now covered in less than half the time formerly required ; 
Albany is brought within twenty-fours of New-York, 
instead of averaging three days by water, and two days 
By land. The following table shows the great benefit 
derived to the traveller from this invention ; and the 
cheapness of travelling, since food as well as convey- 
ance is included. 

9 



66 



REbOURCEh OF THE UNITED STATES. 



From Philadelphia to New-York, by 
steamboats and stages 

New- York to Albany, by steamboat 

Albany to Whitehall, by stages.. 

Whitehall to St. John's, by steam- 
boat 

St. John's to Montreal 

Montreal to Quebec, by steamboat 



Expense. 


Hours. 


$10 


13 


7 


24 


8 


12 


9 


26 


3 


4 


10 


24 


$47 


103 



Mile! 

96 

160 
70 

150 

37 
186 



699 



In the spring of 1817, a steamboat reached Louisville, 
in Kentucky, froui Pittsburgh, in Pennsylvania, dropping 
down the Ohio. She displayed her power by different 
tacks in the strongest current on the falls, and returned 
over the falls, stemming the current with ease. About 
the same time a large steamboat reached Louisville 
from New-Orleans, laden with sugar, coffee, wines, 
queensware, raisins, fur, sheet lead, &c. Her freight 
exceeded twenty-five thousand dollars. So that now 
the western waters can be ascended to any navigable 
point; and the commerce of the west is falling fast into 
its natural channel. The use of steam, applied to na- 
vigation, has so effectually removed those obstacles 
which the length and rapidity of the Mississippi pre- 
sented to boats propelled by personal labour alone, that 
a voyage from Louisville to New-Orleans and back 
again, a distance of three thousand four hundred miles, 
can be performed in thirty-five or forty days ; and the 
property freighted is infinitely less liable to damage, and 
is transported at less than one-half the cost of the route 
across the mountains. Hence it does not seem extrava- 
gant to expect, that, in due time, steamboats will find 
their way from the Atlantic Ocean into our great inland 
seas, by the junction of the waters of the Hudson river 
and Lake Erie; and, from the lakes, will carry their 
treasures to the Gulf of Mexico. 



CHAPTER lY. 

Finances., SCc. of the United States. 

AT Is the duty of every free government to train its 
people gradually to bear a due weight of internal taxa- 
tion, in order to raise an ample revenue for the purposes 
of national defence, of internal improvement, of reward- 
ing long-tried, faithful public services, and the encou- 
ragement and patronage of literature, arts, and science. 
On extraordinary emergencies, as the sudden breaking 
out of war, or the necessity of sustaining a protracted 
conflict against a powerful enemy, a liberal use should be 
made of the funding system ; because a national debt, 
provided it be not so great as to impede the productive 
labour of the community, is the best possible mode of 
combining immediate active and vigorous efforts on the 
part of a country with the means of future developement 
and growth ; it is, in fact, the only scheme by which a 
nation can make great present exertions without de- 
stroying its future resources. It is worse than childish, 
it is insane policy to trust, for the public revenue, a//o- 
gether to the customs, or duties upon imported foreign 
goods, (I say imported only, because the Federal Con- 
stitution prohibits the laying any duty on exports from 
the United States,) — which a single year of maritime 
warfare may destroy. This is too contingent, too pre- 
carious a source of revenue on which to stake the ope- 
rations of government, and to balance the movements 
of the public weal. The customs of England, although 
consisting of duties both on imports and exports, do 
not make one-tenth of her public revenue ; she wisely 
leans upon internal taxation as the main prop and sup- 
port of her government expenditure. 



gg RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

In these United States, the Washington administra- 
tion, under the auspices of Hamilton as Secretary of the 
Treasury, as the great founder of the system of Ameri- 
can finance, as the wise parent of pubhc credit in this 
country, laid the foundation of an internal revenue by 
moderate and judiciously-imposed taxes. The first act 
of Mr. Jefferson's practical ministry was to abolish the 
whole of this system, and leave the public revenue to 
rest altogether upon the customs. Mr. Madison sedu- 
lously clung to this same feeble and dastardly policy, 
long after the failure of revenue, the bankruptcy of 
the government, and the necessities of the country, had 
proved its entire fallacy and folly. Towards the close 
of the last war, his party, reluctantly and fearfully, laid 
some internal taxes on land, houses, and manufactures, 
not amounting, in the whole, to ten millions of dollars ; 
a considerable portion of which they have actually re- 
pealed since the peace. Mr. Munroe has a noble op- 
portunity of being, in fact, a President of the United 
States, and not merely the leader of a dominant faction ; 
and if he be wise to consult the real interests of the 
Union, he will at once labour resolutely to establish a 
permanent system of internal taxation, sufficiently ample 
for all present purposes, and containing in itself the 
germs of a gradual increase, keeping equal pace with 
the growing resources, wealth, and population of the 
United States. The revenue of a state, so far as re- 
gards national power, prosperity, strength, and great- 
ness, is emphatically the State ; and a government, whose 
income is scanty and precarious, cannot fail to become 
nerveless and despicable. Since this hope was ex- 
pressed, Mr. Munroe has, actually, in his Message of 
2d December, 1817, recommended to Congress the 
repeal of all internal taxes ! 

There is, indeed, an awful tendency in all parties of 
the American people towards what, by a miserable mis- 
nomer, is called economy ; as if a system, which pre- 
vents the government from calling out the resources of 
the country, from rewarding its public servants, from 
preserving a commanding attitude in respect to foreign 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITES) STATES. 



6$ 



potentates, were not the most pernicious prodigality ! 
The proceedings in Congress, during the two last 
winters, were, in this point of view, portentous. The 
reduction of the direct tax, from six to three millions of 
dollars, and the limitation of those three millions to only 
one year, are fearful omens of the entire extinction of 
that tax. Nay, in the month of February last, a propo- 
sition was made to abolish all the internal taxes; a 
scheme, say its advocates, that failed only because it 
was introduced too late in the session ; and which may 
be carried into a law, by a triumphant majority, at the 
next meeting of the national legislature. 

The reduction of the regular army probably would 
follow, as a matter of course, on the repeal of the in- 
ternal taxes. Indeed, it was proposed in the Senate 
last spring, on the ground that ten thousand soldiers are 
dangerous to the liberties of the American people ; and, 
therefore, should be diminished to five thousand. Bri- 
tain has an army of one hundred and fifty thousand 
men, stationed at home, in France, and in colonial gar- 
risons ; besides her militia, amounting to two hundred 
thousand, and her Sepoy troops in the East-Indies, rated 
at a hundred and fifty thousand. And yet, no man in 
his sober senses believes that the liberties of the Bri- 
tish people are endangered by this standing army. 
The liberties of England are not about to expire under 
the pressure of her military, or the encroachments of 
her government; if they are to perish, they will perish 
under the daggers of her democracy : if she is to be 
blotted out from the list of independent and powerful 
nations, she will be erased from that high scroll by the 
paricidal hand of her own rabble, led on to their own 
and their country's perdition by anarchial reformers, 
who are alike bankrupt in fortune, reputation, charac- 
ter, and principle. But we have no occasion to enter- 
tain such fears at present; for, while the sovereign 
governs under the benignant influence of the laws: 
while the people are free ; while religion, morals, in- 
telligence, learning, science, industry, enterprise, and 
valour continue to make England their favoured abode. 



70 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

the sun of her national ^lory can never set, but will 
burn with brighter and still brighter light, until all the 
ages of time shall be lost in the profound of eternity. 
The standing army of Britain may be too numerous, 
and too expensive for the present dilapidated state of 
her finances ; but, in regard to the liberties of her peo- 
ple, it is utterly harmless and innocent. 

How much more a fortiori then must the liberties of 
the American people be secure, under the presence of 
ten thousand men, mostly native citizens, and com- 
manded by officers, whose courage, loyalty, and talents 
have been displayed on the battle-field, and have re- 
ceived the reward of their country's gratitude ? This 
little army is divided and stationed in garrison along the 
Atlantic coast, from the District of Maine to St. Mary's, 
in Georgia, a distance of nearly two thousand miles, 
and on the west, from the lakey to New-Orleans, a dis- 
tance still greater. The American citizens are intelli- 
gent, well educated, and awake to the preservation of 
their liberties ; every where armed, and trained to the 
use of arms, and comprising a militia of nearly a million 
of free men. Are such a country, and such a people, 
in jeopardy, as to their freedom, from the existence of 
a standing army of ten thousand men ? 

Upon what ground of political forecast and wisdom 
is it, that so many Members of Congress, and so large 
a portion of the people out of the national legislature, 
seem bent upon lessening the defences of the country ; 
and that too, precisely at the moment when the United 
States, by their rapid augmentation in greatness, and by 
the peculiar condition of the world, which has thrown 
all Europe into the hands of three or four powerful 
sovereigns, and which forbids the very existence of 
any weak or nerveless government, are more than 
ever exposed to disturbance in their foreign relations ."* 
Against all saving of mere money, at the expense of 
national dignity and strength, it behooves the American 
government to contend with all its influence, power, 
and vigilance. And, unless the government gradually 
train its people to bear the weight of due taxation, how 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



71 



can it expect their adequate support in a fierce and 
protracted struggle for national superiority, or sove- 
reignty, or existence ? Are the people of the United 
States prepared, noz^, for such a conflict, as the British 
people have, with so much courage, and wisdom, and 
perseverance, endured for five and twenty years, and 
finally conducted to so triumphant an issue ? A con- 
flict which, at the expense of seven hundred millions of 
Eounds sterling, and of three hundred thousand lives, 
as broken down the power of revolutionary France, 
and rescued Europe, America herself, and the whole 
world, from impending bondage ? 

If not, how are they to acquire such habits of endur- 
ing patriotism and loyalty ? When the danger comes, 
it will be too late ; it will then be in vain to appeal to 
the fears and hopes of the people, to talk of forced 
loans, and of conscriptions, of requisitions of men and 
money. The government alone can inspire such high 
and heroic habits into the people, by a wisely adjusted 
system of internal taxation, which, increasing with the 
augmenting wealth and population of the Union, will 
enable government to call out, either on a sudden, or 
for a continuance, all the resources of the country, 
whether for the purposes of defence or oflence, when- 
ever the interests of the nation may require. Not a 
moment ought to be lost in laying the foundation of 
such a system ; to frame which may well employ the 
deepest reflection of our ablest legislators and finan- 
ciers ; that the taxes shall be so laid as not to obstruct 
the progress of productive labour, nor divert capital 
from its legitimate objects, but leave all individual ef- 
fort free to find the advantages of unrestrained compe- 
tition in every allowable pursuit. 

The banking capital of the United States exceeds a 
hundred millions of dollars. In most of the States there 
are several chartered Banks for the purposes of dis- 
count and deposit. The United States Bank has a 
capital of thirty-five millions of dollars — of which the 
general government is a stockholder to the amount of 
seven millions, and appoints five out of twenty-five 



72 



MSOURCES OF THE UmTED STATU. 



Directors, twenty being chosen annually by the stock- 
holders at large. The influence which government has 
over this Bank will greatly facilitate all its mone>'ed 
operations in future, both m war and in peace. The 
intrinsic benefits which banking institutions afford to 
every commercial community, are too well known to 
require any minute elucidation. The youthful student 
will find those benefits fully displayed in Sir James 
Stuart's work on political economy ; Dr. Smith's 
"Wealth of Nations," and in Mr. Thornton's admirable 
Treatise on Paper Credit. 

The national debt of the United States at present 
does not amount to one hundred and twenty millions of 
dollars. The expense of the revolutionary war, which 
gave independence and sovereignty to America, was 
upwards of one hundred and thirty-five millions of 
dollars. About one-half of this expense was paid by 
taxes, levied and collected during the war, and the 
residue remained a debt due from the United and the 
separate States on the return of peace, in 1783. The 
advances made from the American Treasury were prin- 
cipally in paper, called Continental Money, which, ul- 
timately, depreciated so much that one thousand dollars 
would not buy more than 07ie dollar in silver; but the 
specie value of the debt, independently of the paper 
depreciation, amounted in April, J 783, to $42,000,375, 
and the annual interest to $2,4 J 5,956. The interest, 
however, was not paid under the old confederation, 
and in 1790, the debt amounted to $54,124,464, and 
the State debts, including interest, were estimated at 
$25,000,000. Mr. Hamilton, the first Secretary of the 
Treasury, after the establishment of the Federal Con- 
stitution, advised the general government to assume 
the whole of this debt, both state and continental, 
amounting to $79,000,000, and bearing an annual in- 
terest of $4,587,444, but Congress assumed only 
$21,500,000 of the debts of the several States, which 
were appropriated to each State. On the 31st day of 
December, 1794, the sum total of the unredeemed debt 
was $76,096,468. 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 73 

Provision was made by law, first for paying the in- 
terest, and then for the redemption of the capital of the 
debt. For the payment of the interest, the permanent 
duties on imported articles, the tonnage duties, and 
duties on spirits distilled within the United States, and 
on stills, after reserving $600,000 for the support of 
the general government and the national defence, were 
appropriated and pledged. The Sinking Fund, for the 
redemption of the debt, was placed under the manage- 
ment of the President of the Senate, the Chief Justice 
of the United States, the Secretary of State, the Secre- 
tary of the Treasury, and the Attorney General, for the 
time being, as Commissioners of the Sinking Fund, 
which consisted of the surplus of the duties on imports 
and tonnage to the end of the year 1770; the proceeds 
of loans, not exceeding $2,000,000; the interest on the 
public debt, purchased, redeemed, or paid into the 
Treasury, together with the surplusses of moneys ap- 
propriated for interest; and, lastly, the avails of the 
public lands. The amount of debt purchased by the 
Commissioners of the Sinking Fund, up to the 31st of 
December, 1794, was $2,265,022. In March, 1795, 
Congress made considerable additions to the income of 
the Sinking Fund, and appropriated and vested them in 
the Commissioners, in trust, till the whole debt should 
be redeemed. 

On the 1 st of January, 1 800, the total debt, funded 
and temporary, of the United States, amounted to 
$79,433,820; the debts contracted by the general 
government from the year 1790 to 1800, being 
$10,786,100, and the debts discharged during that 
time being $8,164,232. The causes of the augment- 
ation of the debt were the extraordinary expenses in- 
curred in the wars with the Indians; $1,250,000 ex- 
pended in suppressing two insurrections in Pennsylva- 
nia, on account of the tax on whiskey ; more than 
$1,500,000 spent in the transactions of the United 
States with Algiers and the other Barbary powers, and 
the still greater expenses occasioned by the disputes 
with revolutionary France, in 1798 and 1799. On a 

10 



74 RESOURCES OF THE UMTED STATES. 

change of administration, in 1801, the Sinking Fund was 
modified anew, and on the 28th of April, 1802, Con- 
gress enacted, that $7,300,000 should be appropriated 
annually to th€ Sinking Fund ; which was to be ap- 
plied first to paying the interest and principal of the 
public debt, in 1803, the amount of debt was a little 
more than $70,000,000, of which $32,119,211 were 
owned by foreigners — by the English, $15,882,797; 
the Dutch, $13,693,918; other foreigners, $2,542,495. 
Of the residue, particular States owned $5,603,564 ; 
incorporated bodies in the United States, $10,096,398; 
individuals, $22,330,606. 

In the purchase of Louisiana the United States paid 
the French government $15,000,000; of which 
$3,750,000 were to be paid to the American mer- 
chants, for their claims on that government, and 
$11,250,000 to be paid in stock, at six per cent. — the 
interest payable in Europe, and the principal payable 
in four equal annual instalments, the first becommg due 
in 1818. By the act of Congress, 10th Nov. 1803, 
creating this stock, $700,000 annually was added to 
the Sinking Fund, making its income $8,000,000. 
After the United States had concluded peace with 
France, in .1800, the vast increase of their revenues, 
arising from duties on imports and tonnage, owing to a 
rapidly increasing population, and an unparalleled ex- 
tension of commerce, enabled them to pay off a large 
proportion of the debt, which on the 1st January, 1812, 
was $45,154,489; the payments in redemption, from the 
1st of April, 1801, to Jan. 1, 1812, being $46,022,810. 
During this period no additional tax was laid, except a 
duty of two and a half per cent, on goods imported, 
paying ad valorem duties. The sums received from 
1801 to 1811, inclusive, and applicable to the pay- 
ment of the interest and principal of the debt was 
about $90,000,000. 

In the month of June, 1812, Mr. Madison and the 
Senate of the United States declared war against Eng- 
land, about the same time that Bonaparte left France 
with an army of five hundred thousand men, for the 



I 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 175 

purpose of subjugating Russia, and completing his con- 
tinental system for the destruction of the British Em- 
ire. In anticipation of their war on England, Congress, 
y an act of the 14th March, 1812, authorized a loan 
of ;§; 11,000,000, of which were obtained $10,184,700; 
certain Banks loaning ;^2, 150,000, and the residue, 
being $8,034,700, was funded. About half of this resi- 
due was obtained from Banks, the rest from individuals. 
In 1813, the Sinking Fund redeemed $324,200 of this 
stock. On the 8th of Jan. 1813, a loan of $ 1 6,000,000 
was authorized, which sum was obtained, principally 
from individuals, at the rate of 88 for 100 dollars; that 
is, for every 88 dollars paid in money a Certificate of 
stock for 100 dollars was issued, bearing an interest of 
six per cent. The stock issued for this loan amounted 
to $18,109,377, giving a bonus to the lenders of 
$2,109,377. By an act of August 2, 1813, a further 
loan of $7,500,000 was authorized, which was raised, 
by giving for every 100 dollars received stock to the 
amount of $ 1 1 3tVo, at six per cent. The stock issued 
on this loan was $8,498,583, allowing a bonus of 
$998,583. On the 24th of March, 1814, a loan of 
Jg25,000,000 was authorized, of which only $11,400,000 
was raised, and for which $14,262,351 of stock was 
issued, making a bonus of $2,852,000. 

The terms of these loans were so disastrous to the 
government, so clearly indicating its want of credit, 
and the price of stocks so depressed, as to be sold at 
69 and 70, for cash, a depreciation of 30 per cent, that 
no more was raised of the $25,000,000 loan, and Trea- 
sury Notes were issued to make up the deficiency. On 
all these loans, the money received by government was 
only $42,934,700, for which $48,905,012 of stock was 
issued, making a difference of $5,970,312 against the 
United States Treasury. In addition to this, New-York 
and Philadelphia lent government money, for which 
$1,100,009 of stock was issued, making the whole stock 
funded on these loans to be $50,105,022. Treasury 
Notes were issued to the amount of $18,452,800. The 
ascertained debt incurred by the late war, on the 20th 



7(5 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

of February, 1815, was $68,783,622, to which add the 
old debt of $39,90.3,183, and the total is $108,688,805, 
to which must be added outstanding debts to the amount 
of $13,000,000, and the whole debt of the United 
States is only $121,688,805. On the 24th of February, 
1815, the issue of $25,000,000 of Treasury Notes was 
authorized; on the 3d of March, 1815, a loan of 
$18,152,800 was authorized to be made in the Trea- 
sury Notes previously issued. 

The Sinking Fund consists of an annual appropri- 
ation of $8,000,000, arising from the interest oi' the debt 
redeemed, amounting in 1813, to $1,932,107; from the 
sales oi^ public lands, equal in that year to $830,671, and 
from the duties on imports and tonnage. For the na- 
ture of the British Sinking Fund, and wherein it differs 
from that of the United States, see " The Resources of 
the British Empire," p. 236, et seq. The American 
Sinking Fund had redeemed of the national debt, on 
the 1st of January, 1814, $33,873,463. In March, 
1817, the Sinking Fund income was raised to ten mil- 
lions of dollars. 

The revenues of the United States, previous to the 
late war against England, were derived from duties and 
taxes on imports, tonnage of ships and vessels, spirits 
distilled within the United States, and stills, postage of 
letters, taxes on patents, dividends on Bank stock, 
snuff manufactured in the United States, sugar refined 
here, sales at auction, licenses to retail wines and dis- 
tilled spirits, carriages for the conveyance of persons, 
stamped paper, direct taxes, and sales of public lands. 
The revenues have been chiefly derived liom duties on 
imports and tonnage. Internal taxes were laid at dif- 
ferent periods, by the Washington administration, but 
were all discontinued by an act passed in i\pril, 1802, 
under the auspices of Mr. Jefferson. On the 14th of 
July, 1798, a direct tax of $2,000,000 was laid upon 
the United States, and was the only direct tax imposed 
previous to the late war. The customs consist of du- 
ties on imports and tonnage, and of moneys for pass- 
ports, clearances, light-money, Sic, The gross amount 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. "yj 

of the customs is what accrues on the importation of 
merchandise ; the net amount is what remains after de- 
ducting the drawbacks on the exportation of the same 
merchandise ; and drawbacks on domestic spirits ex- 
ported, on which a duty has been paid, and bounties and 
allowances for the fisheries, and on the exportation of 
salted provisions, and, after deducting the expenses of 
prosecution and collection. The amount is secured to 
government by bonds payable at different periods, ac- 
cording to the term of credit given to the importer. 

The amount of the actual receipts from the Customs, 
from the 4th of March, 1789, the commencement of the 
government, to the 30th of June, 1816, was, 



In 1791 $ 4,399,472 In 1804 

1792 3,443,070 1805 

1793 4,253,306 1806 

1794 4,801,065 1807 

1795 6,688,461 1808 

1796 6,567,987 1809 , 

1797..... 7,549,649 1810 , 

1798 7,106,061 1811 

1799 6,610,449 1812 

1800....: 9,080,932 1813 

1801 10,750,778 1814 

1802 12,438,235 1815 

1803 10,479,417 

From the 1st of January to the 30th of June, 1816, 



511,098,565 

12,936,487 

14,667,698 

15,846,521 

16,363,550 

7,296,020 

8,683,309 

13,313,222 

8,958,777 

13,224,623 

6,998,772 

7,282,942 



$15,426,951 



The double duties made the amount for 1815 so 
large ; the Custom-house bonds became due, on an 
average, the year after the importation of the goods ; 
which explains the low amount of customs for the years 
1809 — I8J0; they being the fruits of the embargo, 
which was suspended in 1809 ; and, in consequence, af- 
forded a rich harvest to the Treasury in 1811. In 
1810 the restrictive system was again enforced, and 
produced the famine of 1812 to the exchequer. The 
small amount of the year 1814 was owing to the war, 
commenced in June, 1812, and terminated in February, 
1815. The Report of the Secretary of the Treasury, 
(the late Mr. Dallas,) for the year 1816, states, that on 



73 RESOURCES or THE UNITED STATES. 

the 12th of February, 1816, the whole of the public 
debt, funded and lloating, was )^ 123,630,692; but, on 
the 1st of January, 1817, did not exceed 1^109,748,272 ; 
reducing the debt, from the 12th of February, 1816, to 
the 1st of January, 1817, Si 3,882,420. 

The appropriations and payments lor 1816 were 

Demands on the Treasury for that year by appropriations §32,475,303 



^iz. — For civil department, foreign intercourse, and 

miscellaneous expenses 3,540,770 

Military department, current 

expenditure $7,794,250 

Arrearages 8,935,373 

16,729,023 

Naval estabhshment 4,204,911 

Public debt 8,000,000 



Payments at the Treasury, to the 1st of August, 18 16... ^26,332, 174 

For civil department, &:c 1,829,015 

Mihtary do. current ex- 
penditure ^4,285,236 

Arrearages 8,935.372 

13,220,608' 

Naval department 1,977,788 

Public debt, (adding to the appropriation of 
1816 part of the balance of appropria- 
tion of 1815,) 9,354,752 

Leaving an unexpended balance of the annual appro- 
priation, on the 1st of August, 1810, of. $ 6,143,129 

To which add the part surplus of the appropriation of 

1815, used for the sinking fund 1,354,762 

And the whole balance is $ 7,497,891 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 79 

The actual receipts of the Treasury, for 1816, were, 

The Cash Balance in the Treasury, (excluding Trea- 

sur3^ Notes,) 1st January, 1816 g 6,298,652 

Customs, for seven months, from the 1st of Jan. to 
the last of August, 1816, without allowing for de- 
bentures on drawback, estimated at ^1,829,564, 21,354,743 
Direct Tax, including the assumed quotas of New- 
York, Ohio, South Carolina, and Georgia, for 

the direct tax of 1816 3,713,963 

Internal duties 3,864,000 

Postage, and incidental receipts 127,025 

Sales of pubhc lands, (excluding <i^21 1,440 re- 
ceived in the Mississippi Territory, and pay- 
able to Georgia,) 676,710 



Receipts in revenue, from the 1st of January to 

the 1st of August, 1816 ^36,035,093 

Loans, by funding and issuing Treasury 
Notes 9,790,825 



Gross receipts from the 1st of January to the 1st 
of August, 1816 45,825,918 

Estimated receipts, from the 1st of August to the 
31st of December, 1816 19,876,710 

Gross annual receipts for 1816 $65,702,628 



go RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Probable receipts compared with probable expendi- 
tures of 1816. 

The gross annual receipt for 1816 $65,702,631 

Appropriation for 1816 $32,473,303 

Excess, above the appropriation 6,270,395 

Unsatisfied appropriations of 1815 7,972,277 

46,717,975 



Balance of receipts for 1816 18,984,656 

Deduct Loans and Treasury Notes 9,790,821 



Ultimate surplus for 1816 % 9,193,835 



CustomsfromMarch,1815, to July 1816, both inclusive, $28,271,143 
Debentures during the same period 2,624,421 

Product of Customs, exclusive of collection $25,646,722 



Customs from March to December, 1815, both inclusive, $ 6,916,399 
Debentures during the same period 794,857 



Product of Customs, exclusive of collection $ 6,121,542 



Customs from January to July, 1816, both inclusive $21,354,743 

Debentures during the same period 1,829,564 

Product of Customs, exclusive of collection $19,525,179 



New-York Customs, from March, 1815, to July 1816, 

both inclusive $9,926,188 

Philadelphia 5,085,206 

Boston 3,579,130 

Baltimore 3,339,101 

Charleston 1,047,546 

New-Orleans 732,083 

Savannah 521,287 

Norfolk 491,150 



The duties remained nearly the same from 1802 to 
1812, except the additional two and a half per cent, on 
merchandise imported, paying duties ad valorem^ which 
constituted the Mediterranean fund : whence the great 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATEfi. gj 

increase of duties from 1802 to the commencement of 
the restrictive system, was owing, chiefly, to the increas- 
ed population and consumption of the country, and the 
prosperous state of American commerce, until destroyed 
by the embargo. On the 1st of July, 1812, one hundred 
per cent, was added to all the permanent duties, which 
was to continue during the war against England, and one 
year thereafter. This increased the rate of duties, ad 
valorem, to 40, 30, and 25 per cent. 

Soon after the establishment of the Federal Govern- 
ment, in 1789, duties on American spirits and stills 
were laid ; other internal taxes w^ere afterward laid ; 
but were all repealed in 1802. The sums paid on these 
internal taxes, from their commencement to September 
30th, 1812, was ;g 6,460,003— of which S 1,048,033 were 
paid in 1801; and in 1812, only $4,903. The States 
which paid the largest proportions of the internal taxes 
were Massachusetts, $232,566; New-York, $143,757; 
Pennsylvania, $209,545; Virginia, $115,444. Although 
these internal duties were repealed in 1802, their col- 
lection has never yet been completed. On the 1st of 
January, 1812, the balances due on the internal reve- 
nue, in the several States, amounted to $254,940. 

At the first session of the thirteenth Congress, held 
in the summer of 1813, internal duties were laid on 
licenses for stills and boilers, carriages for conveyance 
of persons, licenses to retailers of foreign merchandise, 
wines, and spirituous liquors, on sales at auction, re- 
fined sugar, and stamped paper. The amount of the 
tax was about double its former rate on most of these 
articles, and three times that amount on licenses to re- 
tailers. The original plan of the Treasury Depart- 
ment, and adopted by Congress, was to carry on the tear 
by loans ; and to provide no more revenue than might 
be sufficient to defray the ordinary expenses of the go- 
vernment, to pay the interest of the existing public debt, 
and of new loans, amounting to about $9,000,000, 
which were to be raised by doubling the duties on im- 
ports, and laying twenty cents a bushel on salt; bj 
sales of public lands : by direct tax of $3,000.000 ; and 

* 1 1 



32 RESOURCES OF THE l^ITED STATES. 

$2,000,000 by a tax on stills, spirits, refined sugar, 
licenses to retailers, sales at auction, carriages, and 
stamp paper. These taxes, however, were not per- 
mitted to commence until the 1st of January, 1814. 
The sums raised by these internal taxes, exclusive of 
the direct tax, for the two first quarters of 1814, amount- 
ed to S2,212,191 ; for the two last quarters, to 
$1,000,000. On the 19th of September, 1814, addi- 
tional duties were laid on spirits, licenses to retailers, 
carriages, sales at auction, and stamped paper. 

During the same session. Congress also imposed du- 
ties on goods, wares, and merchandise, manufactured 
within the United States, as iron, candles, hats and caps, 
paper, umbrellas and parasols, playing and visiting 
cards, saddles and bridles, boots and shoes, beer, ale 
and porter, tobacco, snuff and segars, leather, gold and 
silver plated-warc, jewellery, paste-work, household 
furniture, and gold and silver watches. 

The amount of internal duties, accruing in 

1814, was $3,262,197 

Deduct duties, refunded or remitted 11,793 

And expense of collection 148,991 

The amount paid into the Treasury, in 

1814, was only 1,762,003 

In 1815, the internal duties, accruing, 

amounted to 6,242,503 

Deduct duties refunded, &c. $126,769, and 

collection expense 279,227 

The amount paid into the Treasury, in 

1815, was.... 4,697,252 

The amount paid from the 1st of January 

to the 30th June, 1816, was 3,241,427 



Soon after the close of the war, in 1815, the duties 
on manufactures, household furniture, gold and silver 
watches, and spirits distilled within the United States, 
were repealed^ as were the additmial duties on postage, 
and retail licenses. The internal duties, remaining in 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. §3 

1817, are duties on licenses for stills and boilers, to re- 
tailers, on carriages, refined sugar, sales at auction, 
stamp paper, and bank notes. 

Most of these internal duties, especially those on 
manufactures, were laid upon the articles ad valorem ; 
and both the value and quantity of the articles manufac- 
tured is made to depend, principally, on the books and 
oaths of the manufacturer, or those employed by him. 
The multiplication of oaths is bad policy in any govern- 
ment; it is, in fact, offering a perpetual bounty to one 
of the worst species of immorality — that of false swear- 
ing. All the world knows what a latitude of conscience 
custom-house oaths imply in England, in France, 'in Hol- 
land, in these United States, and in every commercial 
community; and our American government now adds 
to this mass of evil, by a new incitement to perjury, in 
collecting its duties, on manufactures, upon the oaths of 
those persons who are most directly interested to falsi- 
fy the returns. 

On the 14th of July, 1798, the first direct tax, amount- 
ing to g 2,000,000 was laid upon the United States, and 
apportioned according to the provisions of the Federal 
Constitution, the fourth clause of the ninth section of the 
first Article of which declares, that no capitation or 
other direct tax shall be laid, unless in proportion to the 
census or enumeration, directed by the third clause of 
the second section of the first Article ; namely, repre- 
sentatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among 
the several States, according to their respective num- 
bers, determined by adding to the whole number of 
free persons, (including those bound to service for a 
term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed,) three- 
fifths of all other persons ; the actual enumeration 
to be made once in every ten years. By marking the 
apportionment of direct taxes at ditTerent periods, the 
relative growth of the population of the several States 
during those periods, may be distinctly ascertained. In 
1798, the two millions of dollars, direct tax, were thus 
apportioned among the States ; 



84 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



New-Hampshire % 77,70rj 

Massachusetts.. 260,433 

Rhode-Island .. 37,504 

Connecticut 129,767 

Vermont 4b,864 

New- York 181,681 

New-Jerse}r .... 98,387 

Penns^'ivania .. 237,178 



Delaware 


$ 30,430 


Maryland 


152,600 


\ irginia 


345,488 


Kentucky 


37,643 


North Carolina 


193,698 


South Carolina 


112,997 


Georgia 


38,815 


Tennessee 


18,807 



This tax was laid upon all dwelling-houses, lands, 
and slaves, between the ages of twelve and fifty, within 
the United States. 

The number of acres, valued under the 

Act, was 163,746,688, valued at g!479,293,264 

Number of dwelling-houses, above ^100, 

276,695, valued at 140,683,984 

Total lands and houses S61 9,977,248 



The slaves enumerated were 393,219. The pro- 
portion assessed upon houses was JS47 1,989, on land, 
$1,327,713; on slaves, gl96,610. In some of the 
States the valuations were not completed until three or 
four years after the tax was laid ; and from the date of 
its imposition to the 30th of September, 1812, a period 
of fourteen years, only ^ 1,757,240 of this tax were 
paid into the Treasury ; and large balances are still 
due, now, towards the close of 1817. A second direct 
tax was laid, on the 2d of August, 1813, to the amount 
of 3,000,000 ; and thus apportioned among the States, 
accordinjr to the census ot 1810: 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. g^ 



New-Hampshire $ 96,793 

Massachusetts.. 316,271 

Rhode-Island .. 34,750 

Connecticut 118,168 

Vermont 98,344 

New-York. 430,142 

New-Jersey.... 108,872 

Pennsylvania . . 365,479 

Delaware 32,047 



Marj^land $151,624 

Virginia 369,018 

Kentucky 168,929 

Ohio.... 103,151 

North Carolina 220,238 

South Carolina 151,906 

Tennessee 110,087 

Georgia 94,937 

Louisiana 28,925 



This apportionment shows, that from 1798 to 1813, 
the States of New-York, Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennes- 
see, have made the most rapid growth in population ; 
and that the New-England States, particularly Massa- 
chusetts, Rhode-Island, and Connecticut, have aug- 
mented their numbers very slowly. Delaware is nearly 
stationary ; while the rest, especially Georgia, Virginia, 
Maryland, and Pennsylvania, are increasing their num- 
bers with sufficient speed and force. 

This tax was laid and assessed on the value of all 
lands and lots of ground, with their improvements, 
dwelling-houses, and slaves ; all of which articles were 
to be enumerated and valued by the assessors, at the 
rate each of them were worth in money. In the year 
1814, the lands and houses of the States of New-Hamp- 
shire, Massachusetts, Vermont, Rhode-Island, Connec- 
ticut, and New-York, were valued at $559,270,622 ; in 
1799, at $283,651,885; making an increased value in 
fifteen years of $275,918,738 in six States. In Mary- 
land, Delaware, North Carolina, and Tennessee, the in- 
creased value of lands, houses, and slaves, between 
1799 and 1814, was $365,000,000. In the whole United 
States the increased value exceeded $1,000,000,000. 
The States of New-Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, 
South Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, and Ohio, assumed 
their proportion of the tax, and were allowed a discount 
of fifteen per cent. 



36 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

They paid into the Treasury, as their re- 
spective quotas g 1,1 59,796 

The non-assuming States had paid up to De- 
cember 31, 1815 1,210,000 

Total $2,369,796 

Leaving an arrearage of. % 030,204 



The aggregate valuation of houses, lands, and slaves, 
in the United States, under these acts, exceeded 
$2,000,000,000, of which the slaves make $400,000,000, 
the lands and houses more than jg 1 ,600,000,000 ; giving 
an increase of one thousand millions of dollars between 
1799 and 1815. But, doubtless, this is a very great 
under-valuation, especially in relation to tiie Southern 
and Western States. In New-York, the increase, 
during these fifteen years, has been from one to three 
hundred millions of dollars ; in Pennsylvania, from one 
hundred and twenty to three hundred and seventy 
millions. 

The average value of land per acre, including the 
buildings thereon, throtighout the United States, is ten 
dollars. In particular States it varies ; as for example, 
in New-Hampshire, $9; Massachusetts, Sl8; Rhode- 
Island, ;g40; Connecticut, 835; Vermont, %1 -, New- 
York, $17; New-Jersey, $35; Pennsylvania, $30; De- 
laware, $13; Maryland, $20; Virginia, $5; North 
Carolina, $3 ; South Carolina, $8 ; Georgia, $3 ; Ken- 
tucky, $4 ; Tennessee, $5 ; Louisiana, $2; Mississippi, 
$2; Indiana, $2; Ohio, $6. 

On the 9th of January, 1815, an annual (^iveci tax of 
$6,000,000 was laid, to be assessed like that of 1813, 
but was reduced again to $3,000,000, on the 5tli of 
March, 1816. 

Since the opening of the several land-offices tor the 
sale of public lands belonging to the United States, in 
1796, $8,437,531 have been received from the pro- 
ceeds of those sales, up to the close of the year 1814. 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITEt) STA*rES. 



87 



The whole number of acres sold has been, during that 
period, 5,385,467'^; the whole purchase-money was 
Si 1,356,688; leaving nearly ^3,000,000 due to the 
Treasury. There are yet unsold upwards oi five hun- 
dred millions of acres of public lands, lying in the States 
of Ohio, Indiana, and Mississippi, and in the Territories 
of Michigan, Illinois, and Alabama, and in the Louis- 
iana purchase. The various taxes laid in 1815, were 
considered as war taxes, and necessary to support pub- 
lic credit. The whole revenues of the United States 
were at that time upwards of twenty-one millions of 
dollars : — namely, customs, ^4,000,000 ; internal du- 
ties, S10,159,000; direct tax, S6,000,000 ; public lands, 
g 1, 000,000— but in 1816, they produced ig 1,500,000. 

The postage of letters produces a net revenue of 
about Si 00,000 to the Treasury. 

The following statement shows the estimated receipts 
and expenditures of the United States, at different pe- 
riods, viz. 



Years. 


Receipts. 


Expeiiditures. 


1791 


% 4,418,913 


% 1,718,129 


1795 


5,954,534 


4,350,596 


1800 


10,777,709 


7,411,369 


1808 


17,068,661 


6,504,338 


1809 


7,773,473 


7,414,672 


1818 


19,550,000 


18,850,000 


1819 


22,950,000 


22,880,000 


1820 


22,320,000 


22,910,000 



The estimates of receipts and expenditure for the 
years 1818, 1819, and 1820, were made by the Commit- 
tee of Ways and Means. The net amount of revenue 
received in 1815, was ^50,906,106; being from cus- 
toms, 837,656,486 ; internal duties, §5,963,225; direct 
tax, $5,723,152; public lands, §1,287,959; postage. 
&c. S275,282. 



8g RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

The President's Message, of the 2d of December, 
1817, states, that after satisfjing the appropriation made 
bj law for the support of the civil government, mlHtary 
and naval establishments, provision for fortifications, 
increase of the nary, paying interest of public debt, 
and extino^uishinsj more than eigfhteen millions of the 
principal withm the present year, a balance of more 
than six millions of dollars remains in the Treasury, ap- 
plicable to the current service of the ensuing year. 
The estimated receipts for 1818, from imports and ton- 
nage, amount to twenty millions of dollars; internal 
revenues, two millions and a half; public lands, a mil- 
lion and a half; Bank dividends and incidental receipts, 
half a million ; making a total of twenty-four millions 
and a half The annual permanent expenditure for 
the support of the civil government, army and navy, as 
now established by law, amounts to eleven millions, 
eight hundred thousand dollars, and for the Sinking 
Fund, ten millions, leaving an annual excess of revenue 
beyond the expenditure, of two millions seven hundred 
thousand dollars. The whole of the Louisiana debt 
may be redeemed in 1819; after which, if the public 
debt continues above par, five millions of the Sinking 
Fund will be annually imexpended until 1825, when 
the loan of 1812 and the stock created by funding 
Treasury Notes, will be redeemable. The Mississippi 
stock also will, probably, be discharged during I8J9, 
from the proceeds of public lands ; after which those 
proceeds will annually add to the public revenue a mil- 
lion and a half, making the permanent yearly revenue 
amount to twenty-six millions of dollars, leaving an ex- 
cess of income, above the expenditure, of more than 
four millions of dollars. 

The Secretary of the Treasury, in his report of the 
5tli of December, 1817, corroborates this statement, 
and estimates the expenditure of the year 1818, at 
1^21,946,351 ; namely, civil, miscellaneous, diplomatic, 
and foreign intercourse, S2,069,843; military services, 
including arrearages of half a million, 86,265,132; na- 
val service, including a million for the gradual increase 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. g9 

of the navy, S3,6I 1,376; public debt, :glO,000,000; 
leaving a balance in the Treasury of S8,578,b48, on 
the 1st of January, 1819. 

The following summary, in round numbers, will con- 
vey a tolerably accurate view of the capital, income, and 
expenditure of the United States. 

Capital, real and personal $7,200,000,000 

Income 360,000,000 

Expenditure, United States 1^25,000,000 

The States..-. 20,000,000— 45,000,000 
National debt 100,000,000 

The capital consists in realty, of 

Public lands, 500,000,000 of acres, at 

%2 per acre S 1 ,000,000,000 

Cultivated lands, 300,000,000 of acres, 

at SlO per acre 3,000,000,000 

Dwelling-houses of all kinds 1,000,000,000 

Total of real property. $5,000,000,000 

The personal property of the United States consists 
of the national debt, which, although a debt on the part 
of government, is 

Capital to the stockholders, who are 

American citizens % 100,000,000 

Banking stock 100,000,000 

Slaves, 1,500,000, at $150 each 225,000,000 

Shipping of all kinds 225,000,000 

Money, farming stock and utensils, ma- 
nufactures, household furniture, plate, 
carriages, and every other species of 
personal property 1 ,550,000,000 

Total of personal property $2,200,000,000 

real property 5,000,000,000 

Grand total of American capital* $7,200,000,000 

* See General Hamilton's Reports *' On Public Credit," and " On 
a National Bank ;" Mr. Gallatin's " Sketches of the Finances of 

12 



90 RESOURCES OF THE U.^MTED STATES. 

Contrast this view with that of the capital, income, 
debt, and expenditure of any European nation, and it 
will instantly appear how much greater the resources 
of the United States are, in proportion to their popula- 
tion and territory, than those of the first-rate powers in 
Europe. For example, 

Capital, real and personal of Britain. J 18,000,000,000 

Income 900,000,000 

Expenditure 300,000,000 

Public revenue 230,000,000 

National debt $5,000,000,000, less, re- 
deemed by sinking fund §1,400,000,000, 3,600,000,000 



Yet, notwithstanding this alarming annual deficit in 
the public revenue of 1g 7 0,000,000, the Chancellor of 
the Exchequer, in the last Budget, (June, 1817,) did 
not hold a desponding language, but stated, that he did 
not intend to reduce the interest of the national debt, 
nor to lessen the income of the Sinking Fund below the 
amount to which he had cut it down, in 1813; which at 
that time was twelve millions sterling, it is now nearly 
fourteen. The Exchequer bills, issued to supply the 
deficit^ bore a premium of five per cent, and an interest 
of only three and a quarter, and the stocks had risen 
twenty per cent, during the preceding year, and the 
agriculture, trade, and manufactures of the whole cm- 

fmc were improving, so as to promise, in future, a 
arger public revenue, and less severe pressure upon 
the people. 

For the facts and reasons, ofiven at lenjifth, to show the 
necessity and importance of moneyed institutions^ more 
especially the funding system, a national debt, internal 
taxation, and a national bank, in order to stimulate na- 
tional industry, give efficiency and strength to govern- 
ment, and piomote the prosperity and power of the 

the United Slates ;" the Treasury Reports from 1790 to 1817; 
Mr. Blodget's " Econouiica," and, above all, the second edition of 
Mr. Pitkin's " Statistics of the United States." 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED "STATES. 9J 

whole community in every free country, the reader is 
referred to the " Resources of the British Empire," 
pp. 234 — 306, containing a full account of the rise, 
progress, and present state of the financial system of 
England. This system, however, may be pushed too 
far, by stretching the public expenditure beyond the 
power of taxation to furnish an adequate income. This 
appears to have been already done in Britain, where 
the expenditure for 1817, was £67,817,752, and the 
revenue only £52,850,328 ; leaving a deficit of fifteen 
millions sterling, in a season of universal peace. The 
Finance Committee estimate the income of the years 
1818 and 1819, at £50,000,000, and the expenditure 
at £65,216,657 ; still leaving a deficit of more than fif- 
teen millions sterling, annually. 

How is this deficit to be supplied } Mr. Vansittart, 
in the year 1813, destroyed the progressive force of the 
Sinking Fund, by diverting all the dividends of the 
stock then redeemed, amounting to about nine millions 
sterling, to the current expenses of the year, instead of 
leaving it, according to Mr. Pitt's plan, for the redemp- 
tion of the national debt, to swell the income of the 
Sinking Fund, which, instead of being nearly twenty five 
millions, as it ought to have been in the year 1817, was 
not quite fourteen millions sterling. On the first of 
January, 1818, the outstanding or unfunded debt of 
Britain will be upwards of seventy millions, making to- 
gether with the funded debt, the sum of one thousand 
millions, of which nearly four hundred millions have been 
redeemed by the operation of the Sinking Fund, from 
the year 1786 to 1818, a period of thirty-two years; 
during which time seven hundred millions have been 
added to the debt. So that, by Mr. Vansittart's de- 
stroying Mr. Pitt's plan of liquidating the debt, by the 
continual progression of the Sinking Fund, the redemp- 
tion of that debt seems to be adjourned sine die^ since it 
cannot very well be accomplished by paying o^ fourteen 
and borrowing fifteen millions a year. If England is 
compelled to augment her debt annually, in time of 
profound peace, what is she to do in the event of an- 



g2 RESOURCES OF THE UMTED STATES. 

other war, which would immediately raise her expendi- 
ture from sixty -five to a hundred millions per annum? 
During the last war with revolutionary France, her 
Bank paper was at a discount of thirty-two per cent, 
which, itself, terribly enhanced her expenditure, when 
she had to purchase, widi such depreciated paper, gold 
and silver for the maintenance of her armies abroad and 
supplies for her service at home. Her national in- 
come from houses, lands, and every species of personal 
property, does not exceed two hundred millions, of 
which the government expends one-third^ a proportion 
full as much as any people can pay, and at the same 
time exert their productive industry, so as to prevent 
the capital of the nation from suffering a grievous an- 
nual dmiinution. 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



93 



Si 


5"|' 
ft 


Trust and joint ac 

Fixed property 

yiduals not tn 

for 2 or 3 years 

Held by foreigne 

Common natiou 

and reduction 

tax 


no 

-.3-3- 

2.3 
3 S- 

M 


55 






n 


_ X 








a" 


?r 


2.^ 


:coun 
of i 
msfe 

rs 


3" 

•3 >o 









STP 


»'&' 


• 3 Q.? 


C 








P_ 


3 


§-2: 


S5 




#- 




>— 1 k^ 


03 


© 


■a 


tg S:^ 5^0= g 




i-i 


^ 


OT3 








» 

3 '-t 


w 


C^ 


^ -a I-* o f-3 CO 


o 


» 


05 i^i ^^ I-" 05 to 


CO 


35 


-a CO CO to I-' Oi 













'i^ 


«^ 


03 CO O 05 CO w 


c^ fB 


Ct 


lO 


O ^ tS O C2 Ot 


• 3 


k9 


^ 


CO O tn CO »0 »0 


r* 


H-' 






03 


^ 


wT 


CO ts i-> 




O 


-J 


j'^ i*J^ i^i" J^ 


re 'T3 








g-? 


"O) 


-3 


"o3 'bi'bi "oln "I-i 


<n 


;^ 


to CO O 03 t7< CO 


OJ 


-o 


CO O' o> ov to >-' 


» s 








o 


-O 


o K^ -J ^^ *^ ^ 


a.2 




>c^ 


1— » 03 C5 tji Q O 
O *. 05 to C CO 


- 3 


s 


^ 


r*" 








>u 


OD 




*» 03 




00 


» 


♦^ iO 


"3 


"oi 


iO 


ec"k3 "to 05 to 


)i 

3 ►! 


O < 


s 


oo CD N-j CO n; 


OJ 


^ 


i°_03 a^ 03 













"co 1 


J5 


"^"Vi "OO 03 "to 


tfi" re 


05 < 


» 


CO Ol 03 ife. 05 


• 3 


^ c 


^ 


03 05 C~J — ' CO 


r* 


t,^ 






cn 


03 C 


/3 


~l ^^ 




*» i 


C^ 


^^S or 


•0 


"bo ' 


-J 


"o'tO "It^ ^ tn 


3 re 


03 ' 




cr- *^ —1 CO ^ 


Oi C 


»3 


CO CO 03 *» CO 








•■S 1- 


ti 


^^ ta en —' ~i 


• re 


Hi 




03 O Q i-" tn 


3 




y> 


r^ 








03 








^-a 


to 
to 


■4 


03 ttk 

tn CO E ta ^s 


to 
05 n 


_JD t 


^ 


^*^ jri^'' ^ 


O " 




"t-'">!i. "03l>S "}o 




03 i 


s 


4i ~J 03 'JD 05 




^ c 


» 


ta 03 ^^ *. o-. 


. 


1 






Ol 


l_> 






"0 


7 ■ ^ 


^ 


*k 03 


k- re 


o c 


O 


CO CO *^ tr> 


^ 2 


05 


n 


ife --0 to 03 CO 


"to "i 




"co"^ "©"o "w 


re 


4-. ► 






3 


to c 





CT3 *a. CTj 4- to 


r*" 


1 






1-," 










M 




^ i^ ^ 


3 -d 


"en 


n 


*J i-J Ol V3 *"* 

Cn to to O O »tO 


1" 


o 


■I 


K) ^ 




J" J^i" J^i^' i^ 








5" 2 


"bs "c 


o 


"co "o"eo "tji"tD "ot 


I—- 2 


03 J 




^^ *. -■ 02 a: -J 




to t 


r» 


Ki t;i CO ' Kj I-' CO 


r* 


•>4 k 


..A 


to 1-' 





CO 


~i 


05 —'CO to -- C3 


to c 




Ol C5 -4 CO Ol _p 


p 








to t 


S 


"to "bt'to "oi'b-j "co 


!?■ B 


•s » 


-a 


to to -J ^ to o 


p.a- 


O i 


7i 


J-" icy< i-j-' J^ 












C5 C 


T 


"to ">ii."o-i "bilo ">u 




CO c 




.b. to tn O ^ 03 


o < 


s 


O -J ^ Oi ^ o 




J-" 






_ r 


03 >■ 




CO to 


?i 2 


05 


-« 


-J -J l-" 


E 3 


■^ i 


o 


Ot CO C5 03 _Cn 


^dq 










1i 


■1 


"iCi"t;i "ce o "eo 


2 > 


03 >l 


^ 


to to ^ C5 to 




CT t 


^ 




1 








>-. 


♦o 




,_i 


11 






0-1 cn 


o * 


1\ 


JJl Ot 


E.re 


"Jo "t 


o 


to "to "eo Ot 


^. 3 


O " 


-t 


it. 03 O to 1*- 


re w 


o c 


o 


'-.' Oi 03 Oi 03 


a> — 



g^ ^ C5 Q CIS 

^ ?^ ^ S. <^ 

S«i '^^ ?S"^ O** &« 

S; «> «» Q^ 






2". "s J^ S 



52 PS 






2 J^ ^ a g- 
2 s S 55- 2 

Co >- ~ „ 



Cb 












S2 a-a ., 
^ -^ «> 



t*3. 









*^ O Ci s 



cn 






W5 s ~ ~ ^ 

Co ^^ » 

:?• f5 J2 ?^ 

^ ^ i I. 

^- s- >- 5- 

~ O J5 



94 RESOURCES OF THE IMTED STATISS. 

In the year 1813, the expose gave the population ol' 
old France at 28,700,000 ; and of the whole empire at 
42,705,000. 

Capital, real and personal, at $18,900,000,000 

Income at 945,000,000 



Capital of France in 1817 12,000,000,000 

Income 600,000,000 

Public revenue 140,000,000 

Expenditure 250,000,000 



A deficit this of $110,000,000, is so alarming in the 
present exhausted condition of France, as to portend 
either national bankruptcy, or the still greater evil of 
national convulsion. The dilapidated state of all the 
European exchequers, probably, renders it a matter of 
necessity for the allied sovereigns to maintain their 
armies of occupation at the expense of the French peo- 
ple. But such an annual expenditure is so far beyond 
the power of France, in the present depressed state of 
her agriculture, manufactures, and commerce to sup- 
port, as to threaten the total destruction of her ways 
and means ; and to create an innumerable multitude of 
paupers, ripened by hunger and nakedness into a state 
of desperation, ready for any revolution. 

Russia can hardly be said to have organized any 
system of finance, as yet ; and has never been able to 
move her armies out of her own territories without a 
subsidy from England. She has, indeed, recently esta- 
blished a bank at Petersburgh, for the purpose of faci- 
litating the moneyed operations of her immense empire. 
The finances of Austria, Prussia, Spain, and the United 
Netherlands, are in a condition truly deplorable, and re- 
quire many years of peace and economy to reduce them 
to order, and render them productive. 

It is supposed that the United States have, very re- 
cently, purchased Florida for five millions of dollars. 



P^ESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 95 

If SO, they have done wisely to add a valuable terri- 
tory to their southern frontier at a small expense, in 
the way of barter, which is a much easier, safer, and 
better mode of acquiring dominion than that of war and 
conquest. The whole purchase money does not amount 
to quite sevenpencc sterling an acre, for the fee simple 
of upwards of thirty-seven millions of acres, to say no- 
thing of the territorial sovereignty. The public lands, 
as yet ungranted, will pay the price of the whole coun- 
try ten times over. 

Its surface covers 58,000 square miles, and contains 
not quite 10,000 people, or about one person to every 
six square miles. Its seacoast is extensive, and pre- 
sents many fine harbours, and many good situations for 
commercial towns. Indeed, the whole country, when 
cleared, drained, and cultivated, will maintain an abun- 
dant population. 

If Florida be incorporated with the dominion of the 
United States, it Avill very soon number a greater popu- 
lation than ten thousand souls. Such is the contrast 
between the quickening power of popular hberty and 
the benumbing influence of single despotism. Spanish 
America, and the Brazils, are far superior to theUnited 
States, in all the physical advantages of soil, climate, 
the products of the earth, and navigable waters ; and 
yet, under the weak, improvident, tyrannical adminis- 
tration of the Spanish and Portuguese governments, 
those vast regions languish in ignorance, superstition, 
poverty, weakness, and vice ; while the United States 
present to the eyes of an astonished world the extreme 
reverse of all these bad qualities and conditions. New- 
Orleans, while under the dominion of Spain, was lost in 
imbecility, idleness, and folly ; but now, after expe- 
riencing only fourteen years of American freedom, it is 
advancing rapidly towards the rank of a first-rate com- 
mercial city — by its enterprise and spirit — its growth in 
wealth and population. And so will it fare with Cuba, 
with Mexico, and Peru, when they become integral 
parts of the United States, and exchange their present 
penury and bondage for the freedom and abundance 



95 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

that invariably follow the foot-tracks of a popular go- 
vernment. 

How strange and portentous is the contrast between 
the steady and progressive policy of the United States, 
and the supine indifference of the British government ! 
Britain has lavished the life's blood of a hundred thou- 
sand of her bravest warriors, and expended uncounted 
millions in rescuing Spain from the yoke of France; 
and yet she cannot, or will not acquire a single inch of 
territory, in any quarter of the globe, from the Spanish 
government ; — while the United States, without sacri- 
ficing the life of a single citizen, and at the expense of 
only twenty millions of dollars, have, within the course 
of a few years, obtained from France and Spain the ex- 
clusive sovereignty over a fair and fertile dominion, at 
least twenty times the extent of all the British Isles taken 
together. 

Why does not England, as part of the indemnity due 
to her from Spain, transfer to her own sceptre the 
sovereignty of Cuba ; seeing that the Havanna com- 
mands the passage from the Gulf of Mexico ? Why does 
she not take possession of Panama on the south, and 
Darien on the north, and join the waters of the Atlan- 
tic with those of the Pacific Ocean, in order to resusci- 
tate her drooping commerce ^ Or is it her intention 
still to slumber on, until she is awakened from the stu- 
pefaction of her dreams by the final fall of Spanish 
America, and of her own North American provinces, 
beneath the ever-widening power of the United States; 
— and by the floating of the Russian flag, in token of 
Russian sovereignty, over the Grecian Archipelago, 
and on the towers of Constantinople ? Are all her na- 
tional glories to be blotted out in one hemisphere, by a 
power but recently emerged from the snows and bar- 
barism of the North ; and in the other hemisphere, to 
be trampled into the dust by the gigantic footsteps of 
her own child ? Is the heathen mythology of Jupiter 
and Saturn to be verified in the nineteenth century ? 

The island of Cuba would soon exhibit another, and 
a better aspect, under the vigorous dominion of Britain, 



HESOURCES or THE UNITED STATES, Q-y 

than she now presents, under the forlorn and beggarly 
o-overnment of Spain. By her free and equal laws, by 
the weight of her capital, by the skill, industry, spirit, 
and enterprise of her people, Britain would soon render 
that island a powerful nation in itself, and a most valu- 
able outwork of her own maritime empire. By the 
possession of Panama and Darien, and the junction of 
the Atlantic with the Pacific Ocean, England might 
command the commerce of the east and west, and pour 
such a floodtide of wealth over all her home territory 
as would relieve her people from the pressure of their 
national burdens, and give to their productive labour an 
unimpeded course, and an abundant recompense. 
Doubtless, the proposals made to the British govern- 
ment, in the years 1792 and 1798, by the Spanish Ame- 
rican delegates, for the emancipation of their country, 
and the junction of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and 
which have been already adverted to in a preceding 
chapter, on the Commerce of the United States, are to 
be found in the office of the Secretary for Foreign Af- 
fairs, in London. 

Notwithstanding the shattered state of the Euro- 
pean systems of finance, and the consequent weakness 
of the governments of Europe, it is more than ever in- 
cumbent upon the United States to lay the foundation of 
an ample, permanent, and growing internal revenue, 
arising from home taxation ; because, whenever Europe 
becomes generally embroiled again, America will find 
that she now fills too large a space in the eye of the 
world to preserve her neutrality, and to keep aloof 
from the conflict. In spite of the apparent calm, the 
elements of an approaching tempest are every where 
visible in the European horizon. There are no symp- 
toms of continuous health and long life in the coalition 
of the allied sovereigns. Russia already exhibits signs 
of jealousy at the naval preponderance and commercial 
influence of Britain : while Encrland is alarmed at the 
enormous strides of the Russian government towards ab- 
solute ascendancy on the continent of Europe ; she re- 
fuses to join, and looks with apprehension on the^ Holy 

13 



98 RESOURCES OF THE UiNTTED STATES. 

League, whose avowed principles are so extremely sim- 
ple, not to say childish, that they cannot fail to rouse 
the suspicion of every one that is acquainted with the 
steady, strait-foi ward progress by which Russia has en- 
larged her territory, swollen her population, and aug- 
mented her power, during the last hundred years. 
Austria and Prussia both tremble at the overgrown 
greatness of their imperial neighbour; and see, in the 
mcrease of that greatness, the forerunner of their own 
doom. 

Meanwhile France, whose habitual intrigue and di- 
plomatic cunning never sleep, whatever be the form of 
her government, will labour mcessantly to sow the seed 
and ripen the harvest of dissention among the coalesced 
sovereigns ; and will strain every nerve to embroil Bri- 
tain with Russia and America, that she herself maj 
profit amidst the general confusion. The United States 
will be called upon to take sides in the European con- 
test; and they will, both government and people, range 
themselves against England, whom they hate with 
all their heart, and soul, and strength, as their naval 
and commercial rival, who must, at all events, be ex- 
terminated. They must, therefore, build up their finan- 
cial system on a broad basis, in order to mamtain a long 
and desperate struggle — since the British lion will not 
yield in subjection, while a drop of blood plays around 
and warms his heart ; he will not lie down in bondage 
until the whole life tide shall have been drained from 
out his veins. 



CHAPTER V. 



On the Government^ Policy^ Laws, S^c. of the United 
States. 

As all the governments of this country are purely 
elective, and founded upon the full sovereignty of the 
people, the study of political economy ought to make an 
essential part of American education ; whereas, except- 
ing in the State of Virginia, our schools and colleges 
generally neglect this important branch of Philosophical 
inquiry altogether. Indeed, it is far too fashionable a 
doctrine in the United States, that a man may be a very 
profound political economist, although his ignorance on 
all other subjects is quite conspicuous, and his general 
dulness no less manifest. But, in fact, there is no roy- 
al road to this science ; and although, in an hereditary 
aristocracy, men are bom legislators, yet no privileges 
of birth can confer a knowledge of political philosophy. 
And I would advise those sapient personages, who insist 
upon the extreme facilities of this science, and that its 
whole compass lies within the range of the every-day 
exertions of ordinary understandings, to learn the indi- 
vidual application of the argumentum ad modestiam to 
themselves, by a perusal of the political effusions of the 
greatest philosophers and statesmen of ancient Greece ; 
for instance, the Treatise of Plato on the best constitu- 
tion of a Republic ; the elaborate work of Aristotle on 
Politics, and the schemes of Isocrates for obviating or 
preventing the external quarrels of the Greeks among 
themselves, by directing a constant hostility against fo- 
reign nations ; more especially against the monarchy of 
Persia. 



jQQ RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Indeed, notwithstanding their progress in civilization, 
and their frequent practice in war, had led the Greeks, 
though not to the generosity of the warfare of modern 
Christendom, yet to occasional uages adopted to hu- 
manize hostihty, in some degree, and to diminish the 
aggregate amount of its bloody horrors ; still the radi- 
cal imperfections of their political system, and the tur- 
bulent habits which it superinduced, led their greatest 
statesmen and profoundest sages to conclude that war- 
fare was the natural state of man ; a state which might, 
possibly, be regulated, but could not be prevented, or 
suspended, by any efforts of human policy. Is it possi- 
ble that certain popular modern writers have ever seen 
the works of Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon ? 
or, at least, learned trom their perusal to extol Greece 
as the favourite land of freedom ; in which that greatest 
of social blessings peculiarly flourished, from the age 
of Pisistratus to the usurpation of Philip of Macedon ? 
Bold and frequent struggles, indeed, A^ere made, and 
much private assassination, and many public butcheries 
were perpetrated in the name of liberty, whose spirit 
seemed to be continually boiling up into fire, and smoke, 
and vapour ; but whose substance was seldom, if ever, 
to be found in any of the Grecian commonwealths, 
•whether following the fortunes, and obeying the com- 
mands of the Lacedemonian aristocracy, or those of the 
imperial democracy of Athens. 

Could the battle of Cheronea itself, which made 
Philip master of Greece, be more fatal to Grecian free- 
dom than the fields of Aigospotami and Leuctra ? Xeno- 
phon, certainly, felt that his contemporaries were not 
free; as all his narrative writings sufliciently testify. 
And, if we turn from the recorded history of what ac- 
tually did take place, to the observations and schemes 
of the ablest men who speculated upon those transac- 
tions ; about the same time we find Plato, and Isocrates, 
and Aristotle, profound and eloquent as they were, ut- 
terly uiiai)lc to propose any plan, or devise any means 
by which Greece might be free. The great difficulty 
of mastering so complicated a science, as that of politi- 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. jqj 

cal economy, must be accepted as an apology for the 
system of policy recommended in that work, so much 
admired by the ancients, both Greek and Roman — I 
mean Xenophon's Cyropaideia. Fortunately for us, 
experience has taught some few of the nations of modern 
Christendom forms of government, beyond all compari- 
son more favourable to private and public liberty and 
peace. Although successive demagogues had most 
wretchedly degraded the ancient Athenian constitution ; 
yet, if there ever existed in Greece any foundation for a 
good government, it seems to have been in the laws, 
customs, and habits of Athens, as derived from the in- 
stitutions of Theseus and Solon. That excellent princi- 
ple — the only one on which a free government can be 
tirmly grounded — namely, that the aggregate o{ private 
should make public good ; and its practical corollary, 
that the rights of individuals, once established by law, 
should always be held sacred, seem to have been original 
principles, established in the kingdom of Theseus, and 
the Republic of Solon. 

But a quite different principle obtained a very gene- 
ral prevalence among the other Grecian common- 
wealths; namely, an ideal public good, always distinct 
from, and for the most part destructive of, private good ; 
pretty much resembling the modern jacobin doctrine, 
that the true business of government is so effectually to 
provide for the general good, as most unerringly to de- 
stroy all individual happiness and virtue. Whereas, by 
the very constitution of human nature, self-love^ or the 
desire of personal happiness, is implanted in the heart 
by God, as the primary, the perpetual spring of all hu- 
man action. Man cannot love his kind, unless he first 
love himself. The ever-active principle of self-love is 
strongest in the heart of every individual ; and is gra- 
dually weakened as it extends its affections throughout 
all the kindred charities of life — parental, conjugal, filial 
— throughout all the social ties of friends, neighbours, 
acquaintance, magistrates, country. The predominant 
power of the principle of self-love is implied in the very 
terms of that divine command, " Thou shalt love thy 



102 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



neighbour as thyself^ Meaning, that under the select- 
est influences of Christian charity man is required to 
give the ivhole affections of his nature to his neit^hbour, 
that is, to every one who stands in need of his kindness. 

But turbulent, discontented, profligate men in all coun- 
tries, trample upon the individual affections of humanity; 
and, in proportion as they prove themselves faithless 
husbands, unnatural fathers, disobedient sons, cruel 
masters, false friends, quarrelsome neighbours, rebel- 
lious citizens, unprincipled in all their conduct, do they 
arrogate to themselves the claim of being the exclvsive 
champions of the public good. As if it were possible 
for a wretch, steeped in all the atrocity and degrada- 
tion of private vice, to be a real patriot, actuated by a 
sincere desire to promote the welfare of his country ! 
O ya,^ fj^KToTiZva? (says iEschines, most indignantly, in bis 
oration against Ctesias) k«i 7r<xT>j^ ttovj^^o?, ovk ccv -Tron 
yivono ^yjfMX.yu'yog X^*^^°^y '^^^^ ° """^ (PiK/xxroc KCii oiKHorxroc 
cwuxTX JM.JJ (TTipyoov, ov^^7^ori vfxxg m^i 7rAe<ovof TTonjcriTXi tow? 
ctAAoTfiowf, ov^i yi i^ix 7rov>j^o?, cvK CM TTon yivono ^yjjMia-icc 
X^^^'^o'^' " It is impossible, that the unnatural father, the 
hater of his own blood, should be an able and faithful 
leader of his country ; that the heart, which is insensi- 
ble to the intimate and toucliing influences of domestic 
aftection, should be alive to the remoter impulses of pa- 
triotic feeling ; that private depravity should consist 
with public virtue." 

One of the very first symptoms that discovers the 
selfish and mischievous ambition of a demagogue, is the 
profligate disregard of individual feeling and domestic 
affection. To be tenderly attached to the little, pre- 
cious circle of kindred, to feel a yearning of the heart 
towards the particular subdivision of society to which 
wc belong, is the first principle, the radical germ oi pub- 
lic affection. It is the first link in the series of that 
golden chain of love, by which we are bound, first to 
our families and friends, then to our country and man- 
kind at large. 

Of all the legislators of ancient Greece, who under- 
took to promote the public welfare, by destroying all 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



103 



private good, Lycurgus the Spartan was most success- 
ful. His first step was to make the Lacedemonians a 
nation of paupers ; to destroy almost the very vestiges 
of private property, under pretence of providing for 
the interest of the community. Every individual was 
required to sacrifice all his own pursuits, comfort, and 
happiness, to whatever was called the good of the state ; 
by which patriotic and fashionable phrase, nothing more 
was in reality meant, than that all private interest 
should yield, and be rendered subservient to the schemes 
and views of the few ambitious men who governed the 
state, and made the bodies, minds, and wills of all their 
felloAV-citizens the pedestal of their own exalted power. 
And, as the public or national education (for no private 
instruction was allowed) was chiefly directed to render- 
dering the frame hardy and robust, to instil the neces- 
sity of personal courage, to teach dexterity in thieving, 
and skill in lying, to inculcate habits of remorseless 
cruelty, the Lacedemonians, under their existing 
leaders, were always prepared for the perpetration of 
any crimes, however dark and atrocious ; and, in con- 
sequence, were perpetually employed, either in assas- 
sinating the Heloies, a nation of brother Greeks, whom 
they had reduced to slavery; or in carrying on war 
against, and domineering over and oppressing their 
sister republican states. Whence, all over Greece, 
the peaceable and the quiet, who did not aim at politi- 
cal influence or military power, but only desired peace, 
and security, and civil order, were exposed to constant 
alarms, and the severest sufferings. 

But even the constitutions of Theseus and Solon, as 
well as those of every other Grecian commonwealth, 
were in want of another great political principle, spread 
over many portions of modern Europe, namely, repre- 
sentation^ which is, in fact, the beginning, middle, and 
end of all the governments, both State and Federal, of 
these United States. The essential advantage of the 
principle of representation is, not merely that a great 
nation can transact all its public business conveniently 
by its representatives, which even a very small country 



104 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

cannot do, by its assembled numbers, in wild democracy ; 
but also, that some responsibility may be attached to 
every department of constituted power; by which pro- 
vision alone, whatever be the name or ibrm of govern- 
ment, real despotism can be obviated or prevented. 
For the want of this grand improvement in modern 
political science, the Grecian Legislators were quite at 
a loss how to secure liberty to the great body of the 
people without giving them despotic power; and thus, 
m etTect, the multitude became absolute and unresponsi- 
ble tyrants, instead of being, what they ought to be in 
every country, orderly freemen, living in obedience to 
the municipal laws of the existing governments. 

Those persons are either not wise, or not honest, or 
neither, who pretend that political and legislative 
science is easy and obvious, level to the meanest capa- 
city, and most unlettered education ; to the apprehen- 
sion of the peasant who directs the plough, the artisan 
who plies the loom, the carman who guides his horse, 
and of all the labourmg classes, whose daily toil is de- 
voted to providing for the necessities of each passing 
day. The writings of the ablest Greek philosophers 
and statesmen, showing how very deficient that en- 
lightened and illustrious nation was in many of the most 
important principles of political economy, abundantly 
prove how difficult and complicated that science is. In- 
deed, the history of all nations demonstrates by what 
slow fand painful steps, by what apparently accidental 
circumstances, by what jarring of discordant interests, 
by what violence of faction from within, by what pres- 
sure of hostility from without, by what dear-bought ex- 
perience of long-continued and accumulated evils, any 
advance towards perfection in the constitution and ad- 
ministration of government has been made. The works 
of Plato and Xenophon should, in particular, be stu- 
died, in order to form an accurate notion of the imper- 
fection of political science in their time, and of the en- 
tire inability, even of their great genius and extensive 
learning, to remedy the defects, or enlarge the bound- 
aries of that important science. 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES- 105 

To arrive at any certain and comprehensive results 
in political philosophy, requires a previous patient, and 
accurate analysis of by far the most complicated class 
of phenomena that can engage our attention ; namely, 
those effects which result trora the intricate, and often 
imperceptible mechanism of political society. In ancient 
times, it was impossible to make this analysis; because, 
before the invention of printing, and consequent diffijsion 
of knowledge among a large proportion of every civilized 
community, the human mind was compelled to waste it- 
self in such researches, unaided and solitary 5 and the 
difficulties attending these complicated inquiries, must 
for ever have baffled the efforts of individual genius; 
since even now, they yield slowly and reluctantly to the 
united exertions of so many successive ages, and such 
numerous hosts of philosophers and politicians, all com- 
bined to prosecute the same inquiries. In proportion 
as the experience and reasonings of different individu- 
als, of different ages and countries, are brought to bear 
directly upon the same objects, and are so skilfully 
combined, as to illustrate, modify, and limit each other ; 
the science of political economy assumes more and 
more, that systematic arrangement and form, which 
give both encouragement and assistance to the efforts 
of future investiofators. 

In prosecutmg the science of political philosophy, little 
is to be learned from perusing the speculations of an- 
cient sages ; because they confine their attention to a 
comparison of the different forms of government, whe- 
ther simple, as monarchlal, aristocratic, or democratic; 
or mixed, as in a combination, variously proportioned of 
these elemental institutions; and to examining the pro- 
visions made by each State, for perpetuating its own 
national existence, and extending its own military glory. 
It was reserved for the purer religion, and brighter phi- 
losophy of modern times, to investigate those universal 
principles of moral justice, which ought, under every 
Form of government, to regulate the whole system of 
social order, and make as equitable a distribution as 
possible, among all the different members of a commu- 

14 



IQ5 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

nity, of the advantages and burdens of political uiiioii 
In all the departments of literature, science, and art, in 
which genius discovers within itself the materials of its 
own labour, as oratory, poetry, painting, architecture, 
sculpture, pure geometry, and some branches of moral 
philosophy, the ancients have left great and finished 
specimens of excellence. But in physics, or natural 
philosophy, where the progress of improvement depends 
upon an immense collection of accumulated facts, and 
their skilful combination; and above all, in politics, 
where the materials of information are scattered over 
the whole surface of human society, and are still more 
difficult to collect and arrange, the means of communi- 
cation afforded by the press, have in the lapse of the 
two last centuries, done infinitely more to accelerate the 
progress of the human mind, by the increase of sub- 
stantial information, than had been accomplished in all 
preceding ages.* 

One chief design of the legislators of antiquity, was 
to counteract the love of money, and prevent luxury, 
by positive institutions, and sumptuary laws; and to 
perpetuate habits of frugality, and a stern severity of 
manners, throughout the great mass of the population. 
The Grecian and Roman historians and philosophers 
uniformly attribute the decline and fall of every nation, 
to the destructive influence of general wealth upon the 
national character; rendering the men idle, efleuiinate, 

* During the last fifty years, the most enlightened political econo- 
mists in Europe, have laboured to improve the condition of human 
society, by endeavouring to inform the minds, and amend the actual 
policy of existing statesmen and legislators. Some of the best 
works on this subject are, Sir James Stuart's Treatise on Political 
Economy, Dr. Smith's Wealth of Nations, Mr. Malthus's Essay ou 
Population, Mr. Brougham's Inquiry into Colonial Policy, the Earl 
of Selkirk's Essay on Emigration, the Chevalier Filangieris's Trea- 
tise on Legislation, Mr. Bentham's work on the same subject, the 
works of M. Turgot, and M. Quesnay, of M. Say, of the Marquis 
Beccaria, and of Camponanes, the Spanish philosopher, whose 
work on the importance of Agriculture and Commerce, led him to 
the dungeons of the Inquisition in 1796, from which he was libe- 
rated, after an incarceration of twelve years, by the revolution oi 
1808. 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. JQ<J 

dastardly, and profligate, fit only to be slaves and syco- 
phants ; and Inducing the women to be immodest and 
vitious. But the policy of modern legislators is direct- 
ly the reverse of these self-denying ordinances ; so far 
from dreaming that poverty and beggary are the sinews 
of national strength, they are perpetually labouring to 
open new sources of individual and collective opulence, 
and to stimulate the active industry of all classes, by 
encouraging a general taste for the conveniences, com- 
forts, and luxuries of life. And in modern Christendom, 
the most wealthy nations invariably exhibit a popula- 
tion, which exercises the greatest industry, and enjoys 
the most unrestrained freedom ; indeed it was the ge- 
neral diffusion of wealth among the lower order of the 
people, more especially among the burghers of the ci- 
ties, which first gave birth to the spirit of personal in- 
dependence, and national liberty in modern Europe ; and 
which produced in some of the governments, even on 
the European continent, as in Holland, the Hanse 
Towns, Sweden, and Switzerland, a far more equal dif- 
fusion of freedom and happiness than ever existed un- 
der the most highly vaunted constitutions of heathen 
antiquity. 

The free governments of continental Europe, to be 
sure, were overthrown, and for awhile destroyed by 
the force and fraud of revolutionary France, who, with 
the most rigid impartiality, restored all her vassal states 
to their pristine condition of poverty, barbarism, and 
bondage ; such as shrouded the whole of Christendom 
in Cimmerian darkness, before commerce and wealth 
had poured in their streams of civilization, intelligence, 
and freedom. But Britain, who was enabled, by the 
prompt and permanent power of her government, and 
by the characteristic energy of her people, to ride out 
in safety and triumph the revolutionary storm and tem- 
pest, which scattered the wrecks of the other European 
governments over all the ocean of ruin, has uniformly 
increased in the strength of her executive, and in the 
liberty and refinement of her people, in proportion as 
private and public wealth has been diffused throughout 



108 RESOURCES OF THE WITED STATES. 

all her dominions. The radical and fatal defect of an* 
cient legislation appears to have been, its constant aim 
to shape and mould, by the force of positive institutions, 
the order oi human society, according tP some pre- 
conceived, abstract notion of political expediency; with- 
out sufficiently trusting to those universal principles io 
the natural constitution of man, which, when allowed 
full scope of exertion, never fail to conduct the com- 
monwealth to a progressive improvement in its condi- 
tion, and to a continual exaltation of character. 

The chief excellence in the system of modern policy, 
is its conformity, in some of the most important points 
of economics, to the order of nature. And it is errone- 
ous, just so far as it imposes restraints upon the natural 
course of human affairs, by stifling the growth or per- 
verting the direction of individual industry and private 
property. Some of the most absurd and ruinous of 
these restraints are to be found in mcrcandle monopolies^ 
which increase, unnecessarily, the price of all the mono- 
poly articles ; in protecting duties on domestic manu- 
factures, which ensures to the consumer a worse com- 
modity at a heavier expense than a better article could 
be furnished by foreign importation; in prohibitions of 
exportation, which operate as a check to production, by 
closing the avenues to competition in the markets of 
other nations ; in all the beggarly and despicable expe- 
dients of embargo, non-intercourse, and non-importa- 
tion, the misbegotten progeny of the restrictive system ; 
all of which directly tend to repress the growth of na- 
tional wealth, retard the progress of population, para- 
lyze the exertions of private enterprise, wither the 
sinews of public resource, render the government odious 
and oppressive at home, ineffectual and contemptible 
abroad. 

The most efficient plan of policy, which any govern- 
ment can pursue for establishing the prosperity and adr 
vancing the greatness of its people, is carefully to follow, 
and steadily maintain the order of things pointed out by 
iS^ature herself; that is to say, by allowing every one, 
4S long as he observes the rules of justice and common 



ilESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. ^qQ 

honesty, to pursue his own private interest in his own 
way, and use his industry, talents, and capital, in the 
most free and unrestrained competition with the capital, 
talents, and industry of his fellow-citizens ; and thus to 
ensure a continual augmentation of the aggregate 
amount of national labour, intelligence, and riches. 
Every system of policy which endeavours, either by ex- 
traordinary encouragements to seduce towards any 
given species of industry a larger proportion of the 
capital of the country than would be naturally employed 
therein, if each man were left to the unbiassed employ- 
ment of his own labour and property — or, by extraordi- 
nary restraints, to force from any particular species of 
industry some share of the capital which would other- 
wise be employed in it — has a direct tendency to im- 
poverish and weaken the whole community. 

A most instructive chapter in political economy might 
be written on the ruinous effects of those short-sisfhted 
views, which prompted our general government, some 
few years since, to endeavour to build up the interests of 
the American farmers upon the ruin of the American 
merchants ; whereas the well-being of agriculture and 
commerce is reciprocal ; they are twin-sisters; they are 
born, and flourish, and fade, and die together. In mo- 
dern Europe, generally, a system of policy the reverse 
of this has been adopted ; and one, scarcely less opposed 
to the order of nature, in the developement of national 
wealth and greatness : I mean encouraging the industry 
of towns and cities, at the expense of the labour of the 
country ; and sacrificing the interests of agriculture to 
those of commerce. 

The mercantile system, which is now interwoven in 
every department of European policy, is based upon 
two radically erroneous principles ; namely, restramts 
upon importation, and encouragements to exportation ; 
both of which are unpropitious to the wealth and pros- 
perity of the nation that imposes them. 

Generally speaking, the freei' a government is, the 
more it consults and provides for the personal, domestic, 
and social liberty and happiness of its own people, the 



110 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

less inclined, and less able it is to watch over, and in- 
fluence the movements ofother countries; and, so far it 
is deficient in its system of foreign policy. Hence arises 
the difficulty of constituting a system of government 
which shall unite in itself the threefold advantage of 
personal liberty, a strong executive, and an ample deve- 
lopement of the national mind ; because the full enjoy- 
ment of individual freedom, and great power in the 
executive, are continually operatmg to thwart and 
counteract the efforts of eacli other ; and, without a 
a permanently powerful executive, it is scarcely possi- 
ble to obtain a general developement of the national 
mind ; so as to provide a regular succession of able and 
experienced men, in all the departments of public ser- 
vice, through a series of ages. 

T\\e first requisite, the most essential foundation of all 
good government, the full preservation of personal liber- 
ty, and private property, which may be considered as the 
sheet-anchor of human society, is provided for in a most 
eminent degree by all the American constitutions, both 
State and Federal. But not one of them all gives a suffi- 
cient scope and permanency of power to its executive, ?ior 
sufficiently provides for the developement of the nation- 
al mind, on a scale of large and liberal information. 
Whence, consequently, every individual in the United 
States is called upon to provide, to the utmost of his 
ability, in his own personal vigilance over the best in- 
terests of religion and morals, for the deficient power 
and energy of the government. In most other coun- 
tries, the government is all and the people nothing ; 
whence they exhibit the melancholy spectacle of capri- 
cious tyrants on the one hand, and the suffering slaves 
of oppression and ignorance on the other ; — whereas, 
in the United States, it is nearly the reverse : the people 
are all, and the government nothing ; which is the excess 
of liberty, and imposes severer obligations of duty on 
every free citizen to watch over the welfare of the 
public, the most permanent props and buttresses of 
which welfare are the strict preservation and general 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Ill 



diffusion of pure religion and sound morals, throughout 
all the different orders of the community. 

Whatever political relation subsisted between the 
American colonies antecedent to the revolution, in 
1776, as constituent parts of the British empire, or as 
dependencies upon it, was completely dissolved from 
the moment of the declaration of American indepen- 
dence ; for, from that moment they became, severally, 
independent and sovereign States, possessing all the 
rights, jurisdictions, and authority that other sovereign 
States, however constituted or named, possess; and 
bound by no ties, legal or political, but of their own 
creation, excepting those by which all other civihzed 
nations are equally bound ; and which, together, con- 
stitute the conventional and customary law of nations. 
The Constitution, considered as a federal compact, or 
alliance between the several States of the Union, does 
not differ from other national compacts; but, considered 
as an original social compact, it is novel and unique. 
The American revolution gave birth to this system of 
polity ; and in the States, generally, a ivritten Constitu- 
tion was framed, and adopted by the people, both in 
their individual and sovereign capacity and character. 

The advantages of a written Constitution are many 
and obvious; power, when undefined, has a perpetual 
tendency to become absolute ; and the investigation of 
social rights, when there is no constitutional text to 
consult for their explanation, is a task difficult to accom- 
plish, and almost useless when performed. As it is 
necessary to the preservation of a free government, 
established upon the principles of a representative repub- 
lic, that every man should know his own rights, it is 
also necessary to be able, on all occasions, to refer to 
them. Where the sovereignty is vested in the people, 
government is a subordinate power, and the mere crea- 
ture of the people's will ; it ought, therefore, to be so 
constructed that its operations may be the subject of 
constant observation and severe scrutiny. By com- 
paring the principles of the civil polity of the United 
States with their effects upon the progress of the Ame- 



112 RESOURCES or THE UNITED STATES 

rican government, and the spirit of the American people, 
we should be led to appreciate the municipal institutions 
of this country at their true value. And, perhaps, it 
would be adviseable to derive the elements of a legal 
and parliamentary education in the United States, 
chiefly from the history and constitutions of America 
herself; by which means might be imbibed the genu- 
ine principles of republican government from legiti- 
mate fountains; and the student also avoid the bias of 
any undue impressions derived from the artificial dis- 
tinctions, the oppressive establishments, the feudal en- 
croachments, the ecclesiastical intolerance and mono- 
poly, which distinguish and deform almost all the na- 
tions of Europe. 

Undoubtedly the British Constitution, which, although 
not written, and therefore constructive, is yet to be 
learned from various precedents respecting the royal 
prerogative on one hand, and the privileges of the peo- 
ple on the other ; and in which the several powers of 
government are limited, though in an uncertain way, in 
respect to each other, and the three powers of king, 
lords, and commons, combined together, are without any 
check at all in the Constitution ; whence their union in 
parhament has been styled omnipotent, from the sovc- 
seignty of the nation residing in that body ; and the mu- 
nicipal code of England, consisting of the common or 
customary, and the statute law, to an intimate acquaint- 
ance with which the American lawyers are so early, 
so deeply, and so constantly introduced by the prevail- 
ing course of their professional inquiries and practice, 
teem with invaluable principles of unstained justice, 
liberal equity, profound policy, and accomplished social 
order — principles which cannot be too generally known, 
studied, and received ; nevertheless, it must be re- 
membered, that many of the fundamental doctrines of 
the English government, and many of the maxims of 
English jurisprudence, are utterly subversive of an 
equality of political rights, and totally incompatible with 
the republican form and spirit of the American institu- 
tions and establishments. We must, therefore, care- 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. J j 3 

fully distinguish between the principles which per- 
vade the British, and the genius which quickens the 
American governments; and cuUivate a correct ac- 
quaintance with repubhcan maxims, and cherish a devo- 
ted attachment to the systems of hberty and justice, 
estabhshed in these United States. This subject is 
elaborately and ably unfolded by Mr. Chancellor Kent, 
in the Introduction to his Course of Lectures on Law, 
delivered in Columbia CollegCo 

All the American Constitutions, as well those of the 
Separate as of the United States, are based on an 
equality of civil and religious rights in all the people, 
except the negro slaves, and an entire absence of all 
privileged orders, and politico-religious establishments. 
They diifer from all other governments, ancient and 
modern, in being altogether elective and representative ; 
and in consisting of so many different State sovereign- 
ties, with a general or federal head. The existence of 
the State sovereignties, with each its separate executive, 
legislative, and judicial departments, provides for all 
the purposes of municipal and local regulation, and 
admits of any extent of territory, and any increase of 
population, without danger or inconvenience; while 
the general government is organized to watch over the 
national interests, to maintain due intercourse Avith 
foreign powers, and determine the momentous ques- 
tions of peace and war. Many persons in this country, 
and Europeans generally, express their conviction that 
the present form of our government cannot last long ; 
but that the American confederacy will be speedily dis- 
solved by its own intrinsic weakness, and prodigious 
extent of territory. 

But a closer, and more patient inspection, probably, 
would induce them to believe in the continuance of the 
union, and the perpetuity of free and popular institu- 
tions. We have the authority of two distinguished 
statesmen of the present day for believing in the dura- 
tion of our republican institutions ; the one a foreigner, 
the other a native. A French philosopher, Barbe de 
Marbois, in speculating upon this subject, savs. " The 

15 



114 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

experience of past ages, the recollection of human revo-' 
lutions, excites some disquietude in relation to the future 
destinies of the United States. The usual consequen- 
ces are apprehended from the movements of private 
ambition, the inequality of fortunes, the love of con- 
quest. But, under the peculiar circumstances in which 
the United States are placed, the past cannot serve as 
a criterion for the future. It is true, that free nations 
have been lost in despotism ; but had those nations a 
precise idea of their rights and duties.'* Were they 
acquainted with the tutelary institutions of this day, the 
independenceof the judiciary, the trial by jury, the system 
of representative assemblies and self taxation, the force 
of public opinion, now superior to all opposition.'^ 
Among the ancients, liberty was but a feeling ; in our 
times, it is both a feeling and a positive science. We 
all know how liberty is lost; we are all acquainted with 
the means of defending and preserving it. The United 
States liave now been happy and free for nearly half a 
century. Liberty has struck deep root in the country; 
it is entwined with the first affections of the heart ; it 
enters into the earliest combinations of thousfht ; it is 
spun into the primitive staple of the mental frame of the 
Americans; it is wrought into the very stamina of all 
their institutions, political and social; it thoroughly 
pervades, and perceptibly modifies even their domestic 
life ; it is protected by religion and the laws ; it is 
linked with every habit, op)inion, and interest ; it has, in 
fine, become the common reason, and the want of all 
the American people. Propose slavery to such a peo- 
ple; talk to them of unity in the head; multiply your 
sophisms as you please, to prove to them the paternity 
of arbitrary power, they will never understand you. 
We must not suppose that the love of conquest, that 
fatal passion, will master or lead astray the councils of 
a nation, which, setting out from a line of nearly fifteen 
hundred leagues of coast, may spread the noble and 
hallowed empire of industry and the arts from the shores 
©f the Northern Ocean to those of the Pacific." 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. j ] 5 

The late Mr. Gouverneur Morris, who was one of 
the most able, splendid, and efficient of the statesmen 
that framed the Federal Constitution, in a private letter, 
written to a friend towards the close of his life, ex- 
presses himself thus : " Those who formed our Consti- 
tution were not blind to its defects ; they believed a 
republican government to be the best ; they believed a 
monarchial form to be neither solid nor durable ; they 
conceived it to be vigorous or feeble, active or slothful, 
wise or foolish, mild or cruel, just or unjust, according 
to the personal character of the prince. It is a dupery 
to cite the duration of the French monarchy at eight 
centuries. In that period, the provinces which lately 
composed it passed, by various fortune, from their sub- 
jection to Rome, through the conquests of barbarians, 
the ferociousness of feudal aristocracy, and the horrors 
of anarchy and civil war, to their union under the Bour- 
bons. That union was not consolidated until the soar- 
ing spirit of Richlieu, and the flexible temper of Mazarin, 
had tamed an indignant nobility to the yoke of obe- 
dience. By the vanity, the ambition, and the talents of 
Louis the Fourteenth, France became the terror of Eu- 
rope. By the facile immorality of the Regent, and the 
lasciviousness and feebleness of Louis the Fifteenth, she 
sunk almost into contempt. After a few years of dis- 
tempered existence, under the mild and virtuous Louis 
the Sixteenth, the lamp of that boasted monarchy was 
extinguished in his blood." — There are also some very 
shrewd and sensible remarks, on the probable duration 
of our confederated republic, in '-'• Letters from the South,''^ 
a work lately published in this city. 

The general, or Federal Constitution of the United 
States was framed by a convention of deputies from the 
States of New-Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, 
New-York, New-Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Ma- 
ryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and 
Georgia, at a session, begun May 25th, and ended Sep- 
tember 17th, 1787. It first went into operation on the 
4th of March, 1789. Its provisions are, in substance, 
these : — All legislative powers, granted by the Constitu- 



116 RESOURCES OF THE UmTED STATES. 

tion, are vested In a Cono;ress of the United States, con- 
sisting of a Senate and House of Representatives. The 
representatives are chosen every second year by the peo- 
ple of the several States ; the electors in each Slate 
having the quahfications requisite for electors of the 
most numerous branch of the State Legislature. The 
representative must be twenty-five years old, have 
been a citizen of the United States seven years, and be 
an inhabitant of the State in which he is chosen. Re- 
presentatives and direct taxes are apportioned among 
the several States, according to their respeclive num- 
bers, determined by adding to the whole number of 
free persons, including those bound to service, and ex- 
cluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other per- 
sons. The actual enumeration of the people is to be 
made every ten years, in the mode directed by Con- 
gress ; the number of representatives not exceeding one 
m thirty thousand : only, each State shall have at least 
one representative. When vacancies happen in the 
representatiqn from any State, the State Executive issues 
writs of election to fill them. The House of Repre- 
sentatives choose their Speaker, and have the sole 
power of impeachment. 

On this portion of the Federal Constitution it may 
be observed, that the mode of electing the members of 
the lower house of Congress varjes in the different 
States according to the various modes of electing their 
own representatives, established by the laws of the 
several States. In some, the whole number to which 
the State is entitled is elected by the whole people of 
the State ; in others, they are distributed into election 
districts ; in some, a majority of all the votes is requi- 
site ; in others, only a plurality ; in some, residence of 
the candidate in the district is required ; in others, not. 
The mode by districts, and plurality of votes with resi- 
dence of the candidate, is most general throughout the 
Union. 

The frequent recurrence to the people, by the fre- 
quency of elections, is a radical imperfection which per- 
vades all the American constitutions, both State and 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITK) STATES. ||7 

federal. It has a direct tendency to make the repre- 
sentatives too local in their policy, and to induce them 
rather to aim at pleasing their own immediate constitu- 
ents than to advance the general good, of the nation at 
large; a measure which sometimes requires an appa- 
rent sacrifice of the local interest of the peculiar district 
which they represent. When once seated in Congress, 
the members should recollect that they represent the 
United States, as one great empire, and not merely the 
little district of any particular State, whether of Virgi- 
nia, or of Rhode-Island, of New-York, or of Delaware. 
A triennial election is quite frequent enough for the ge- 
neral government of so extensive a country, and such a 
rapidly-increasing population. This frequency of elec- 
tion, however, is praised as the consummation of politi- 
cal excellence, by many writers and speakers on the 
art of government ; yet it seems to have an immediate 
tendency to throw great obstacles in the way of nation- 
al improvement and prosperity. The elections, both of 
senators and representatives, as well in the general as 
in the State governments, recur too often, particularly 
of the lower branch of the legislature. South Carolina 
and Tennessee are the only two States in the Union 
whose representatives are elected for so long a term afe 
two years ; in Connecticut, and Rhode-Island, the elec- 
tions are semi-annual ; in all the other states, yearly. 

The almost necessary consequence of these frequent 
elections is, that the representatives feel themselves too 
dependent upon the will of their constituents ; whereas, 
they ought to be left entirely free to exercise the power 
delegated to them, at their own discretion, and to the 
best of their judgment, for the good of the country at 
large. The people also are incessantly exposed to cor- 
ruption, amidst the perpetual intrigue and turmoil of 
frequently recurring elections; whence incapable mem- 
bers are too liable to be returned to the legislature. 
It is a notorious fact, that in many districts of theUnion, 
unless a representative follows and obeys the current 
opinions, prejudices, and passions of the day, he will not 
be re-elected; owing to the running of the popular tide 



113 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

against him ; whatever may be his other quahficatioiis, 
Add to this, tliat in consequence of tlie sliort period of 
public service, it is not easy to investigate and annul 
spurious elections, before the session itself be at an end; 
whence, there is a danger, that if a return can be ob- 
tained, no matter by what improper means, the irregu- 
lar member, who takes his seat of course, shall hold it 
quite lono; enough, to answer ail his purposes of legis- 
lation. What is this in effect, but offering a high bounty 
by law, for the employment of electioneering intrigue 
and fraud, in order to obtain a return ? Such a system, 
having an unavoidable tendency to bewilder and corrupt 
the people, and to induce them to elect unworthy repre- 
sentatives, almost ensures the production of a legislature, 
?iot the best qualified by talents, learning, wealth, pro- 
bity, and character, to discharge so solemn and im- 
portant a duty, as that of framing laws for the well- 
being of an extensive, powerful, and fast-growing com- 
monwealth. 

A great part of every year, in every place through- 
out the Union, is literally consumed in cabals and in- 
trigues, carried on between the candidates of the seve- 
ral parties and the people; in order to prepare and ac- 
complish all the various manoeuvres of electioneering 
tactics, which are put in constant requisition, by the 
frequent recurrence of elections for representatives, 
both of the separate and of the United States. Whence, 
a large portion of the time which the people ought to 
employ in productive industry, is expended in prose- 
cutmg the unprofitable trade of politics. The experi- 
ence of history shows, that the democratic forms of 
government are also in themselves liable to these in- 
conveniences; namely, that they are too tedious in com- 
ing to any public resolution, and seldom sufficiently alert 
and expeditious in carrying their resolutions into ellect; 
that as various minds are successively employed, they 
are necessarily wavering and unsteady, and scarcely 
ever persevere to the accomplishment of the measures 
which they resolve to pui'sue; that they are often 
involved in factions, which expose the nation to be 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 219 

inade the instrument, if not the victim, of foreign 
powers. Now, frequent elections cannot fail of render- 
ing a government too dilatory in its resolves ; because, 
under such circumstances, no prudent administration 
would ever venture upon any important national mea- 
sure, until it had felt the pulse, not only of the legisla- 
ture, but of the people also. 

The experience of history equally proves, that the 
great body of the people in every country, are prone to 
be too much elated by temporary success, and too much 
dejected by occasional misfortune. This disposition 
alone, renders them perpetually wavering in their 
opinions about affairs of state, and prevents the possi- 
bility of their ever long continuing steadily fixed to any 
one point. And as the House of Representatives is 
chosen by the voice of the general people, a choice so 
often renewed, almost ensures the legislature to be as 
wavering, and unsteady in their councils, as the people 
themselves are, in their sentiments. And it being impossi- 
ble to carry on the public affairs of the executive govern- 
ment, without the concurrence of the lower house, the 
administration is always obliged to comply with the no- 
tions of the leading members of that house ; and con- 
sequently, obliged to change its measures as often as 
the populace change their minds. Whence, it is impos- 
sible to lay down, and steadily prosecute any plan for 
the gradual developement of the national resources, 
and the gradual growth of the country, in prosperity, 
wealth, power, and influence. 

Besides, in all democratic governments, faction is con- 
tinually springing up from the delusions perpetually 
played off upon the collective wisdom of the multitude. 
VVhile the essential principles of human nature remain 
the same, as they ever have been ; there always will be, 
in every country, and under every possible form of go- 
vernment, many unquiet, turbulent, and unprincipled 
spirits, who can never be at rest, whether in or out of 
power. When in possession of the government, they 
require every one to submit entirely to their direction 
and control ; in words, they profess to be the exclusive 



120 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



champions of liberty, in action,, they are the veriest ty- 
rants imaginable. When out of power, they are always 
working and intriguing against the government, without 
any regard to truth, justice, or common honesty, or the 
welfare of their country. In popular governments, 
where the election of representatives too frequently re- 
curs, such pernicious men have too many opportunities 
of mischief, in working upon, deceiving, and corrupting 
the minds of the people ; in order to inflame them 
against those, who have the management of pubhc at- 
fairs for the time being; and thus, eventually, are ena- 
bled to ripen the discontents of the deluded multitude, 
into violent and seditious movements. Such are some of 
the evil consequences, invariably resulting from the too 
frequent recurrence of elections, which also, (it may be 
remarked,) necessarily incapacitates the representative 
from acquiring an adequate acquaintance with the pub- 
lic business and real interests of his country; owing to 
the short duration of his term of service. 

There are likewise some other imperfections grafted 
into the system of election, throughout the States, 
which deserve notice. The voting bi/ ballot^ instead of 
viva voce^ is accounted a wonderful improvement; 
whereas, it excludes the open, wholesome influence of 
talent and property at the elections ; and encourages a 
perpetual course of intrigue and fraud, by enabling the 
cunning demagogue to impose upon the credulity of the 
weak and ignorant. Indeed, the frauds practised by 
the substitutio7i of one set of ballots for another, in every 
electioneering campaign throughout the country, are in 
themselves innumerable and shameless; and the suc- 
cess of elections, generally, depends on the adroitness 
of intrigue exhibited by the more active political par- 
tisans. 

Universal suffrage^ also, is a favourite feature in our 
republican system ; except in the State of Virginia, 
where a respectable property in land is the prescribed 
qualification of a voter; in some of the States, no pro- 
prietary qualification, either in personal, or real estate, 
is required, and in the rest, (save Virginia.) much too 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. J^J 

small a possession of property, whether real or per- 
sonal, is suffered to qualify the electors. Now, univer- 
sal suffrage is full of evil, without any alloy of good; 
for it gives efficiency and perpetuity to the anti social 
conspiracy of poverty against wealth, of cunning against 
wisdom, of knavery against integrity, and of confusion 
against order. The necessary tendencies of which are, 
to exclude the great talents, high character, and large 
property of the community, from the administration of 
government; which, under such circumstances, is too 
apt to exhibit a scene of folly and oppression at home, 
and to become an object of contempt and scorn abroad. 
The only stable government, which can at once secure 
prosperity to its own people, and command the respect 
of foreign nations, must lay its foundations in the pre- 
servation and ascendency of property. No man ought 
to be allowed to vote, who is not possessed of a free- 
hold in land ; that those, who have the deepest stake 
in the soil, may have the most influence in the country. 
The States, however, generally require a qualifica- 
tion, both of property and of age, in the elected ; which 
seems to be quite useless ; since it is fair to presume, 
that a man must have already acquired some considera- 
ble standing in the community, before his fellow-citizens 
will hold him up as a candidate for election, in either 
branch of the legislature, whether State or federal; 
more especially, if the electors are required to possess a 
proprietary qualification. Still less should there be any 
limitation as to age ; for as soon as a man fan-ly distin- 
guishes himself by his talents and character, demonstrat- 
ing in him a capacity for public service, so soon has he 
the passport of God and nature to the trust and confi- 
dence of the community. How much of zeal and talent 
displayed in her service, would England have lost, if 
Charles Fox, and William Pitt had been denied admit- 
tance into the House of Commons until they had reached 
their thirtieth year ; instead of obtaining an entrance in- 
to Parliament as soon as they had passed the age of 
twenty-one ! 

16 



122 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

It is somewhat singular, that a republic professing to 
establish full toleration, and give equal political rights to 
every religious sect, should in so many mstances exclude 
the clergy from a seat in the legislature. This exclu- 
sion occurs in the constitutions of New-York, Maryland, 
Kentucky, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Ten- 
nessee, and Louisiana. 

Mr. Smith, in his Comparative View of the Constitutions', 
makes some very sensible and spirited obsen'ations on 
the exclusion of the clergy from all official and legisla- 
tive privileges, as well as on all the prominent features 
of the Federal and State Constitutions, which existed in 
the year 1796. 

The disqualification of the clergy in so many States, 
seems either a remnant of the old Gothic policy, trans- 
mitted from times when ecclesiastics were immured in 
monasteries, though even then, ecclesiastics did greatly 
guide the political movements of nations ; or^ perhaps it 
is copied from the practice of the British government^ 
(some years since, backed by a statute passed in order 
to keep Home Tooke out of Parliament,) which ex- 
cludes them from a seat in the House of Commons, un- 
der pretence of their being represented in convocation, 
although both the upper and lower Houses of Convoca- 
tion have been abolished for more than a century, and 
the bishops are allowed to sit in the House of Lords; 
wherefore, accordinj^ to the well-known maxim, cessante 
ratione^ cessat et ipsa lex, as the English clergy are not 
now represented in convocation, they ought to be repre- 
sented in Parliament; or, lastly, their disqualification in 
the States, is the offspring of a misguided jealousy to- 
wards the clerical order, on the part of the laity. 

The expediency of admitting mto the legislature the 
clergy, ought to be left to their own sense of propriety, 
to the feelings and wishes of their congregations, to the 
rules and ordinances of the relicjious body to which they 
belong, and to the good sense, discretion, and opinion of 
the electors. When the laity undertake to exclude the 
clergy by constitutional regulations, the exclusion sa- 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



723 



voura strongly of political intolerance ; it is, in fact, dis- 
franchising the whole of a very respectable and im- 
portant class of the community. The Constitution of 
the United States contains no such exclusion ; and the 
experience of nearly thirty years has not demonstrated 
either its necessity or its use. After all, perhaps the 
exercise of the religious duties of ecclesiastical life are 
not quite compatible with the incessant agitations of act- 
ive politics; and doubtless, the Saviour of the world 
himself, delivered an awful lesson of denunciation against 
earthly avarice and ambition, when he emphatically de- 
clared, that his kingdom is not of this world. Never- 
theless, the admission into the legislative councils of their 
country, ought to be left to the individual discretion of 
the clergy themselves, and of those with whom they are 
connected ; they ought not to be disfranchised of a great 
political right, to which they are justly entitled, in com- 
mon with all the rest of their fellow-citizens, by any 
municipal regulations o{ a free and popular government. 
The Senate of the United States is composed of two 
Senators from each State, chosen by its legislature for 
six years; each Senator has one vote. They are divi- 
ded into three classes ; the seats of the Senators of the 
first class, are vacated at the expiration of the second ; 
of the second class, at the expiration of the fourth ; of the 
third class, at the expiration of the sixth year; so that 
one-third of the Senate is chosen every second year. 
If any vacancy happen, during the recess of a State le- 
gislature, the State executive may make a temporary 
appointment, until the next meeting of the legislature, 
which then fills up the vacancy, either by a new appoint- 
ment, or by sanctioning that of the executive. A Sena- 
tor must be thirty years old, have been nine years a ci- 
tizen of the United States, and be an inhabitant of the 
State for which he is chosen. The Vice President of 
the United States is president of the Senate, but has no 
vote, unless the House is equally divided. The Senate 
chooses its other officers, and a president pro temporCy 
in the absence of the Vice President ; or when he exer- 
cises the office of President of the United States. The 



124 RESOURCES OF THE irNlTED STATES 

Senate tries all impeachments, and when so sitting is on 
its oatii or atTirniation. When the President of the United 
States is tried, the Chief Justice of the United States 
presides ; the concurrence of two-thirds of the members 
present is necessary to conviction. In cases of impeach- 
pent, judgment only extends to removal from the exist* 
ing office, and disqualification for any other office of 
honour, trust, or profit, under the United States ; leav- 
ing the party convicted liable to indictment, trial, judg- 
ment, and punishment, according to law. 

The modes of appointing the Senators of the United 
States vary in different States ; they are generally regu- 
lated by State statute. In some, one house nominates to 
the other till both concur ; in others, both houses unite 
in convention, and make a joint choice ; the first is called 
a concurrent^ the last di joint vote. Both modes are either 
viva voce, or by ballot. In the first mode, the Senate 
possesses the same equal power with the House of Re- 
presentatives, which they have in every other legislative 
act, and of which they ought not to be deprived in so im- 
portant a measure as this. In the last mode, their num- 
bers being always smaller than those of the lower house, 
their influence is, of course, proportionally smaller. The 
mode by joint vote, and joint ballot, is the most preva- 
lent ; the representatives, being the more popular branch, 
too generally carry their point against the Senate. 

The duration of the Senators of the United States for 
six years, is w^ell calculated to give system and stability 
to this important branch of the general government, more 
especially as it acts di judicial part in the trial of impeach- 
ments ; and discharges executive functions, in appointing 
public officers, and in making treaties with foreign poAV- 
ers. In many of the State Constitutions, pecuniary 
quahfications are required in all candidates for pubhc 
office ; in the Federal Constitution none is required, 
either in the Representatives, Senators, or President. 
Perhaps it would be always most prudent to throw the 
proprietary qualification upon the elector, the person who 
votes ; because men without property, generally, not 
only feel less solicitude for the public tranquillity and 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES J25 

welfare, inasmuch as they have less stake in the country, 
but are also more open to the seductive influence of cor- 
ruption. Whereas, it is fair to presume, that men who 
are sufficiently distinguished to appear as candidates for 
public office, when the power of voting is confined to 
those who have a stake of property in the soil, will be 
sufficiently qualified by talents and information to discern 
the real interests of their country, whether they them- 
selves possess property or not. Indeed, it is fair to infer 
that candidates for the federal legislature will, generally, 
be men of some property also, as well as men distin- 
guished in their respective States for political talents and 
character. 

It is of the greatest moment to the best interests of 
the commonwealth, that the Senate should be stable in 
duration, and efficient in power; because it is the only 
proper and effectual check upon the haste and passion 
by which the legislative resolutions of any single assem- 
bly, derived immediately from the people, are liable to 
be influenced. The institution of a Senate affi^rds an 
opportunity for the deliberations of the one legislative 
body to correct the precipitancy of the other, not only 
because the legislators are divided into two separate 
branches ; but also because the component parts of each 
separate branch will, probably, be different; and, con- 
sequently a different system and spirit Avill grow up from 
the difference of organization in the two bodies ; thus 
sening as a salutary constraint upon the public move- 
ments of each other. It is to be regretted that the se- 
parate States, throughout the Union, do not in general 
imitate this valuable provision in the Federal Constitu- 
tion; for the State Senates are, too frequently, either 
chosen for so short a time, or so immediately by the peo- 
ple, that they cannot exist as a legislative body, watch- 
ing over, controlling, and directing, for the common 
good, the wayward passions and prejudices of the more 
uninformed portion of the community. 

The State of Maryland is an honourable exception to 
this general and radical error in the formation of govern- 
ment. By the Constitution of that State, electors are 



J 26 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

appointed for the express purpose of choosing Senators; 
and are bound by oath to select men distinguished for 
their wisdom, talents, and virtues. The Senators are 
elected for fivfi years. The benefits of thus, in a great 
measure, seeming the independence of the Senate upon 
the people, have often been felt in Maryland during the 
earlier years of American sovereignty. On many occa- 
sions the integrity and firmness of the Senators opposed 
and overruled the tumultuous passions, and disorganizing 
shocks of the more popular branch of the legislature. 
There is very little resembling the wisdom of this insti- 
tution in other parts of the American body politic, ex- 
cept the appointment, by electors, of State Senators in 
Kentucky, of federal Senators by the separate State 
legislatures, and of the President and Vice President of 
the United States by electors. In the other States of 
the Union, the election of Senators, immediately by the 
people, almost necessarily ensures a perpetuity of in- 
trigue and cabal, and renders the Senators themselves 
too dependent upon the leading demagogues in the seve- 
ral districts. As the Senate ought to be a salutary 
check upon the precipitancy and passion of the more 
popular branch, it should be constituted in some mode 
cli fie rent from that of the House of Representatives — 
either by electors or by the people, modified and restrict- 
ed in their votes by some particular proprietary qualifi- 
cations. 

Mr. Jefferson, in his "Notes on Virginia," condemns 
the Constitution of that great State for having overlook- 
ed this important provision in all good government. His 
observations are extremely judicious, and well worthy a 
most attentive perusal. In Maryland and Kentucky 
alone, the mode of choosing Senators by electors prevails. 
In several of the other States the voters for Senators 
must have a greater pecuniary qualification than voters 
for the other branch of the legislature ; and the Senators 
themselves must possess more property than the repre- 
sentatives. In other countries, whatever be the form of 
government, the upper or checking branch of the legis- 
lature may emanate from some source different from the 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. j 27 

will of the people ; but in the United States all political 
power, according to the letter and spirit of every Ameri- 
can Constitution, whether State or federal, must flow 
either mediately or immediately from the same fountain — 
the choice of the people — in whom alone the essential 
sovereignty of this extended empire resides ; wherefore, 
in order to invigorate the Senate with an adequate con- 
trolling power, it is necessary to render it less depend- 
ent upon the fluctuating will of the people than is the 
House of Representatives. This can only be done by 
one or other of the modes above suggested. The plan 
adopted by the States of Maryland and Kentucky ap- 
pears to be the best. 

The times of greatest peril to all democratic govern- 
ments are derived from the contagious spreading over 
the House of Representatives of those violent passions 
which occasionally agitate the people in every free 
country ; and this contagious influence of popular passion 
and fury must be generally diffused over the representa- 
tive branch of the legislature, in every place where an- 
nual elections prevail. If the Senate be elected imme- 
diately by the people, will it not necessarily be subject 
to the influence of the same popular passions, and so lose 
all power of effectually checking the occasional phrensy 
of the lower house ? The longer duration of the Senate, 
which exists in many of the States, in some measure 
counterbalances the evils necessarily attendant upon the 
prevailing mode of electing Senators ; and the experi- 
ence of the American people has, in all the recent revi- 
sions of their State Constitutions, (excepting that of 
Georgia,) induced them to Increase the term of Senato- 
rial service. The Senators of the United States are 
elected for six years; those of Maryland for five years; 
of New-York, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Virginia, South 
Carolina, and Louisiana, for four years ; of Ohio for two 
years ; and of Delaware and Mississippi for three years. 
In order to unite firmness, stability, and system in the 
upper house, together with sufficient dependence and 
responsibibillty in the Senators, all these constitutions, 
excepting those of Maryland and Kentuckv, have esta- 



128 RESOURCES OF THL UMltD bTATES. 

blished the plan of rotation; hy which an adequate 
permanency is supposed to be combined with the neces- 
sary change. The mode and frequency of rotation vary 
in almost all the State Constitutions ; hut the result is, 
in all, the same ; that of periodically infusing new mem- 
bers into a permanent legislative body. 

In the federal government there is a biennial rotation 
of one-third of the Senators ; in the State governments 
of New- York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Louisiana, 
an annual rotation of one-fourth ; in that of Ohio and 
South Carolina, a biennial rotation of one-half; in those 
of Delaware and Mississippi, an annual rotation of one- 
third. In Maryland the Senators sit for five years ; and 
in Kentucky for four; but without rotation. It is 
worthy of notice, that in the eastern, or New-England 
States, no senatorial check upon the precipitancy of the 
lower house has been adopted. Their institutions are 
the most democratic in the whole Union. In New- 
Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode-Island, and Vermont, 
the Senates, or Councils, are elected annually, as are 
also the Council of New-Jersey, and the Senates of 
North Carolina and Georgia. The habits of order and 
moderation, together with the general diffusion of ele- 
wientary intelligence, throughout the New-England 
States, render a check upon the popular branch of tlic 
legislature less necessary than in countries not so fa- 
vourably circumstanced. It is, however, dangerous to 
trust altogether to the influence of personal feeling and 
individual habit in national affairs ; more especially 
when counteracted by the force of fixed and positive 
institutions. 

The reason of this omission in the eastern States, in 
New-Jersey, and in North Carolina, probably [is, '"that 
their Constitutions were all, excepting that of Vermont, 
made duiin^ the heat and fury of the revolutionary war, 
when they had little experience to guide them in the 
formation of governments; and, above all, when the 
arbitrary proceedings of the Royal Councils of the 
mother country had created a considerable antipathy in 
the leaders of the infant republics to executive councils, 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. J 29 

and senatorial branches. As to Vermont, though her 
Constitution was made so recently as July, 1793, yet the 
newly settled state of the country could not be expected 
to furnish forth the most profound legislators, and en- 
lightened statesmen. With respect to Georgia the re- 
cent change in the duration of her Senate, from three 
years to one, is not so easily accounted for. She ap- 
pears to retrocede in the science of government, while 
her sister States are advancing in improvement. The 
Constitutions of Connecticut and Rhode-Island are sub- 
stantially the old charters, obtained from Charles the 
Second; those of Massachusetts, New-Jersey, and North 
Carohna, were framed in 1776, and 1780; those of the 
United States, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, South Carolina 
Ohio, Tennessee, Louisiana, Indiana, and Mississippi, 
were established since the year 1787 ; those of New- 
York and Maryland were made during the revolutiona- 
ry war, in 1776 and 1777; and, considering that cir- 
cumstance, it is surprising that they contain such judi- 
cious arrangements in respect to the Senate. 

It is to be hoped, that whenever the New-England 
States revise their Constitutions, they will make their 
Senate more independent of the fluctuations of the po- 
pular will, and render them more efficient checks to 
the occasional precipitancy of the House of Representa- 
tives. The Senates of Maryland, Massachusetts, and 
Kentucky, have power to fill up their own vacancies. 
In the United States the senatorial vacancies are sup- 
plied by the State legislatures ; in almost all the sepa- 
rate States they are filled by popular election. Thus, 
by the very mode of their election, and the brief terra 
of their duration, are the Senators of many of the Ame- 
rican States almost necessarily induced to become 
rather the suitors of a fickle and fantastic popularity 
than, as they ought to be, the steady guardians of the 
people's welfare ; often, in direct opposition to the po- 
pular passion and clamour. Those who are entirely 
dependent upon the people, can seldom render any 
essential service to the State by the wisdom or firm- 
ness of their legislation. Such men incur the unavoid- 

17 



J 3Q RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATEb. 

able hazard of becoming the parasites, instead of the 
lawgivers ; the instruments, not the directors of the 
people. Under such circumstances, if any one should 
happen to be so imprudently honest, as to propose a 
plan, which by restraining the licentiousness oi anar- 
chy, might augment the prosperity and happiness of the 
commonwealth, his more artful compeers would have a 
fine opportunity of throwing him out at the next elec- 
tion, ty loud and long harangues upon the essential 
majesty, the immutable sovereignty, the collective wis- 
dom, the immaculate virtue of the multitude. Nay, 
even those who profess to deceive, in order to benefit 
the people, must soon find, that by propagating mis- 
chievous and disorganizing doctrines, they render it im- 
possible at any future period, to induce the multitude 
to submit to the wholesome restraints of justice and 
order. 

The times, places, and manner, of holding elections 
for federal Senators and Representatives, are prescribed 
in each State, by the legislature ; subject, however, to 
the alterations of Congress, by law, except as to the 
places of choosing Senators. Congress must assemble, 
at least once in every year, on the first day of Decem- 
ber, unless they, by law, appoint a different day. Each 
house is judge of the elections, returns, and qualifica- 
tions of its own members ; and a majority of each con- 
stitutes a quorum to transact business; but a smaller 
number may adjourn from day to day, and compel the 
attendance of absent members, under penalties provided 
by each house. Each house deteriuines the rules of its 
proceedings, punishes its members for disorderly beha- 
viour, and, with the concurrence of two-thirds, expels a 
member. Each house keeps a journal of its proceed- 
ings, and publishes whatever it is not deemed necessary 
to conceal. Neither house, during the session of Con- 
gress, can, without the consent of the other, adjourn for 
more than three days ; nor to any other place than that 
in which the two houses are sitting. The Senators and 
Representatives receive a compensation for their services, 
ascertained by law, and paid out of the treasury of the 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. J3j 

United States. They are, in all cases, excepting trea- 
son, felony, and breach of the peace, privileged from 
arrest during their attendance at the session of their re- 
spective houses, and in going to, and returning from, the 
same ; nor can they be questioned in any other place, 
for any speech, or debate, in either house. 

No Senator or Representative can, during the time for 
which he is elected, be appointed to any civil office un- 
der the authority of the United States, which shall have 
been created, or the emoluments of which shall have 
been increased, during such time ; and no person, hold- 
ing any office under the United States, can be a member 
of either house during his continuance in office. 

The excluding the executive, or cabinet-officers, from 
a seat in the legislature, is a favourite position in the 
American Constitutions: its wisdom, however, may rea- 
sonably be questioned ; and, perhaps, a little examina- 
tion will show this scheme to be rather a subtle refine- 
ment in political theory, than a sound, practical improve- 
ment in the art of government. For executive officers, 
although excluded from the legislature, must govern the 
whole country ; and as they do actually possess the 
highest rank, influence, and power, in the nation, their 
places will always be the great objects of political am- 
bition. To say, tliat the legislature would have no con- 
cern with these men, and that the chief executive ma- 
gistrate, whether President, Emperor, or King, might 
change or appoint them at his own mere will and plea- 
sure, without producing the least sensation in the Re- 
presentative Assembly, would be idle. The legislature 
would be bound by a sense of duty — (in the United 
States the Senate is constitutionally bound) — to con- 
cern itself in all such nominations; and would undoubt- 
edly take such concern, from the still more imperative 
motives of personal interest, of political considerations, 
of the ties of blood and affection. 

The only practical effect, produced by excluding go- 
vernment-officers from a seat in the legislature is, that 
the parliamentary debates are conducted by deputies,, 
whom each set of ministers employ to maintain their 



J 32 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

cause, while they are themselves transacting the busi- 
ness of their office. Ambitious men are obhged to con- 
tend for the preservation of their places, by an inferior 
order of rcasoners and speakers ; and the ambition which 
ought to bring tlie loftiest talents of the country into 
open competition, on the deliberative floor of the nation, 
is confined, chiefly, to the more dangerous and uncon- 
trollable intrigues of the executive cabinet; while the 
legislature is left to a secondary race of men, who strug- 
gle for their respective chiefs. 

It is, likewise, deemed to be a marvellous improve- 
ment in the modern system of political economy, to 
mete out a meagre subsistence to the public servants of 
a country, and to calculate, to a single dollar, the exact 
amount of bodily and mental labour, for which a given 
salary is to be equivalent. Accordingly, there is 7iot a 
sufficient stipend allowed to any American public officer, 
whether executive, or judicial, or ministerial, or naval, 
or military, to enable him to support the decent exte- 
rior of a gentleman. The President of the United 
States himself, receives only a little more than^'rc thou- 
sand pounds sterling a year, the Vice President, and 
Secretary of State, about one thousand sterling per an- 
num ; and the inferior government officers, in due de- 
scending proportion. And the officers of the separate 
States, are worse paid than those of the United States. 

This doctrine also, is a theoretic illusion, and a prac- 
tical evil ; for in every civilized, opulent, and thriving 
society, a certain magnificence of expenditure, is an in- 
dispensable part of official greatness; and if the high 
places of the State do not afTord sufficient means to 
maintain their possessor with due dignity, they are ne- 
cessarily left to the acquisition of minds of an inferior 
order. Whence, the most important offices are likely 
to be filled by persons of subordinate talents; and men 
of genius, being virtually excluded from the helm of go- 
vernment, are tempted to oppose and disturb a system, 
which might, under a more liberal order of things, have 
relied upon them as its surest bulwarks of support; 
and above all, this mistaken policy actually prevents 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 1 33 

the developement of great talents on a large scale, by 
withholding all opportunities of national exertion. So 
that in fact, this State parsimony is the worst of all 
possible State extravagance ; inasmuch, as it blights the 
growth of intellect, and squanders away the mind of 
the country. 

Mr. Thomas Paine, in his celebrated compendium of 
modern politics, called The Rights of Man^ undertakes 
to demonstrate, that no free people, if they be wise, 
will ever give more than three thousand two hundred 
and fifty dollars a jear to their Chief Magistrate, whe- 
ther called President or King; and he proceeds to 
prove, how any nation might easily procure a discreet 
man, able to ride on horse-back, fully competent to dis- 
charge all the functions of executive government, for 
such a limited yearly stipend. It is however surmised, 
that the profound observations of Mr. Paine on the sci- 
ence of political economy, are not now quite in such good 
odour, either in the United States, or in France, as they 
were towards the close of the eighteenth century. It 
is necessary, in order to ensure the progressive power, 
and permanent exaltation of a country, to affix large 
salaries to all the great offices of State, and to all those 
public situations to the discharge of whose functions, it 
IS for the common benefit, that ambition should invite 
high talents. 

ii is mere insanity to say, the people can get the 
work done for less money, and therefore they ought to 
give less. No doubt a cobbler, or a retail dealer in 
small wares, or an attorney without practice, will patri- 
otically consent to take upon himself the burden of go- 
verning the country, in any one of the great executive 
departments of State, for a small stipend ; because the 
wages of office, though comparatively low, afford a 
larger income than either of these enlightened politi- 
cians can derive from the profits of his individual pro- 
fession. But the business of the nation will not be well 
done. Nay, even in a money point of view, the nation 
will be a loser, by employing underlings at a small sa- 
lary, to conduct the government j because such men 



2 34 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

will actually destroy more public property, in twelve 
months of mal-administration, by restraints on com- 
merce, by bounties on manufactures, by crippling the 
growth of productive industry, and by numberless other 
political blunders, than would suffice to pay the most 
magnificent stipends to executive officers for a hundred 
years. And if we add to this, the much higher consi- 
derations of the loss of national honour, and the degra- 
dation of national character — which an incapable admi- 
nistration always inflict upon their country — we cannot 
hesitate to pronounce, that the system of under-paying 
public officers, has a direct tendency to ensure the per- 
petual weakness and disgrace of a community. 

All bills for raising revenue in the United States 
originate in the House of Representatives ; the Senate 
proposing, or concurring with amendments, as on other 
bills. Every bill, which has passed the House of Re- 
presentatives and the Senate, before it becomes a law, is 
presented to the President of the United States; if he 
approve, he signs it; if not, he returns it with his ob- 
jections, to the house originating the bill ; that house 
enters the objections on its journals, and reconsiders the 
bill ; when, if two-thirds agree to pass it, the bill is sent, 
with the objections, to the other house, which also re- 
considers it ; and, if two-thirds of that House approve, 
it becomes a law. If any bill be not returned by the 
President within ten days, (Sundays excepted,) after it 
has been presented to him, it is a law ; unless Congress 
prevent its return by their adjournment. The same 
rules are applicable to every order, resolution, or vote 
of either house. 

This qualified negative upon the proceedings of the 
legislature is given to some of the State Governors, by 
their State Constitutions, as well as to the President of 
the United States, by the federal compact. In England 
the executive possesses an absolute negative upon legis- 
lative acts; but in republican governments this is deem- 
ed too great a power. Tlie royal veto was violently 
discussed in France at the commencement of the revo- 
lution, and tiic discussion closed by cutting off the 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 1 35 

King's head. M. Necker, the Genevese banker and 
financier, wrote a whole book upon the subject, for the 
express purpose of enlightening the mind of Louis the 
Sixteenth, who, however, did not live long enough to 
read it through. Thus fares it with Kings, when their 
subjects enter into abstract discussions respecting execu- 
tive prerogatives and privileges. The questions, whe- 
ther or not, in these United States, the executive shall 
have the power to obstruct altogether, or only to arrest, 
and for a time suspend the will of a majority of the Re- 
presentatives of the people, assembled as a legislative 
body, has been variously decided in different States. 
In some, the executive has no control ; in others, only a 
limited or qualified; in none an absolute control. The 
balance of opinions is in favour of a qualified negative. 
In 1777 the State of New-York established this princi- 
ple in her Constitution ; but united it with a council of 
revision, composed of the Governor, the Chancellor, and 
the Judges of the Supreme Court, to whom all bills are 
submitted, after they have passed both houses of the 
legislature. 

In 1780 the Constitution of Massachusetts vested the 
veto in the Governor alone. In 178G the Constitution of 
Vermont vested in the Governor and Council the power 
not only to propose amendments to laws, but to sus- 
pend them to the next session of the legislature. In 
1787 the Constitution of the United States vested in the 
President; in 1789, and 1795, the Constitution of 
Georgia, in 1790 that of Pennsylvania, in 1792 those of 
New-Hampshire and Kentucky, in 1812 that of Louisi- 
ana, in August, 1817, that of Mississippi, vested in their 
respective Governors the power to negative all laws, 
unless reconsidered, and passed by both houses of the 
legislature. In Connecticut the Governor and Council, 
forming the upper house, possess complete legislative 
powers. In the States of Delaware, Tennessee, South 
Carolina, and Ohio, (which last Constitution was framed 
in November, 1 802,) the Constitutions withhold even a 
qualified negative from the executive. By the Consti- 
tution of South Carolina, in 1776, the Governor had a 



13(3 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

full and unqualified veto In all cases. This power was 
annulled by the Constitution of 1778, and even a quali- 
fied neorative was refused admittance into the Constitu- 
tion of 1790. This seems to be a momentous error; 
for, whatever may be thought of the impropriety of 
entrusting a republican executive with an absolute veto 
upon all legislative proceedings, yet the advantages of a 
qualified negative are many and obvious. 

In nearly all the States the Senate is elected by the 
same electors who vote for Representatives, and in con- 
sequence, must generally be influenced by the same 
popular prejudices, and propelled by the same sudden 
and impetuous emotions; whence it cannot be a suf- 
ficient check upon the passions of the Lower House. 
When laws are passed amidst the heat and smoke of 
those violent impulses, which occasionally agitate every 
free community, it is essential to the stability and cha- 
racter of the government, that some external check, 
dehors the Legislature, should exist, in order to arrest 
and allay the temporary ebullitions of legislative insan- 
ity. And in what hands so proper as those of the Ex- 
ecutive can such a power be deposited } In the event 
of the Governors using his qualified negative, the le- 
gislature may still pass the law, provided, upon a recon- 
sideration of the question, two-thirds of both houses 
concur in thinking the bill salutary. But tlie mere cir- 
cumstance of calling upon them again to consider the 
bill, laden with the deliberate objections of the Execu- 
tive, when time has been given for the storm of popu- 
lar passion to subside, will, in general, be sufiicient to 
prevent the passing of a very pernicious law. 

In tlie Constitution of the tfnited States and in those 
of all the States, except Virginia and North Carolina, 
there seems to be the same mode of trying by impeach- 
ment, the accusation proceeding from the more nu- 
merous branch of the legislature, and being heard be- 
fore the other House. There are some variations in the 
dilTcrent Constitutions, as to the number of members 
required in both houses to constitute an accusation and 
conviction; in some simple majorities being sufiicient; 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. j •^'j 

in others two-thirds being required; in some a mere 
majority of the House may vote an impeachment, but 
two-thirds of the Senate must convict. Jt might be ob- 
served that the practice of originating money-bills in the 
House of Representatives, which prevails very generally 
in the American Constitutions, is derived from a similar 
practice in the House of Commons in England, and was 
transplanted to this country, and engrafted into its sys- 
tem of colonial policy. Whatever reason there might 
be for such a provision in England, in order to give the 
Lower House some counterpoise of strengtli against the 
predominating influence of an hereditary monarchy and 
aristocracy, or however necessary it mig-ht have been 
under the colonial governments of Britisli America, as 
a counterbalance to the weight of the Councils, or 
Upper Houses, appointed by the Crown, there does 
?iot appear to be the same urgent necessity for adopting 
such a provision in the present American Constitutions, 
since in all of them, with only three exceptions, namely, 
those of the United States, Maryland, and Kentucky, 
the Senators and Representatives both emanate from 
the same source, that of popular election ; and, through- 
out the Union, the lower branch of the Legislature has 
a tendency to absorb within its own vortex all the sub- 
stantial powers of government, both State and Federal. 
Under the authority of the Federal Constitution 
Congress has power to lay and collect taxes, duties, 
Imposts, and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for 
the common defence and general welfare of the United 
States — all duties, imposts, and excises being uniform 
throughout the United States ; to borrow money on the 
credit of the United States ; to regulate commerce 
with foreign nations, and among the several States, and 
with the Indian tribes; to establish a uniform rule of 
naturahzation, and uniform laws on the subject of bank- 
ruptcies throughout the United States ; to coin money, 
and regulate its value and that of foreign coin, and fix 
the standard of weights and measures; to provide for 
the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and cur- 
rent coin of the United States ; to establish post-offices 

18 



138 RESOURCES OF THE U?aTED STATES. 

and post-roads ; to promote the progress of science and 
useful arts, by securing, for limited times, to authors and 
inventors, the exclusive right to their respective writings 
and discoveries ; to constitute tribunals inferior to the 
Supreme Court ; to define and punish piracies and felo- 
nies committed on the high seas, and otfences against 
the law of nations; to declare war, grant letters of 
marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning cap- 
tures on land and water ; to raise and support armies, 
(no appropriation of money, however, for that use, being 
for a longer term than two years,) to provide and 
maintain a navy; to make rules for the government and 
regulation of the land and naval forces ; to provide for 
calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the 
Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions ; to 
provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the mi- 
litia, and for governing such part of them as may be 
employed in the service of the United States — reserving 
to the States respectively the appointment of the oi- 
ficers, and the authority of training the militia, accord- 
ing to the discipline prescribed by Congress. 

The Federal Constitution likewise empowers Con- 
gress to exercise exclusi^ e legislation in all cases, over 
such district, not exceeding ten miles square, as may by 
cession of particular States and the acceptance of Con- 
gress, become the seat of the crovernment of the United 
States; and to exercise hke authority over all places 
purchased by the consent of a State Legislature for the 
erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dock-yards, and 
other needful buildings; and to make all laws neces- 
sary and proper for carrying into execution the fore- 
going powers, vested by the Constitution in the govern- 
ment of the United States, or any of its departments or 
offices. The permanent seat of the government of the 
United States Avas established, by act of Congress, upon 
the river Potomac, including the toAvn of Alexandria, 
in Virginia, and Georgetown, in Maryland. The laws 
of Virginia, with some exceptions, were declared in force 
in that part of the ten miles square ceded by Virginia, 
and those of Maryland in the part ceded by Maryland. 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. jog 

At present the District of Columbia is neither repre- 
sented in Congress nor in any State Legislature, nor 
has it any of the rights or privileges of an American 
State, the Supreme Court of the United States having 
decided that it is not a State under the provisions of the 
Federal Constitution. 

Notwithstanding the opinion of many very respect- 
able persons, that the seat of the United States govern- 
ment at the City of Washington, in the District of Co- 
lumbia, is peculiarly adapted for promoting and quick- 
ening the progress of American prosperity and strength, 
it is reasonable to infer, that the location of this remote 
metropolis is, of itself, too well calculated to produce an 
inefficient administration of government. At present, 
seventeen years after its first location, in 1800, the 
Federal City is, in fact, little more than a large waste, 
with a few straggling houses and half-built ruins, thinly 
scattered over an immense surface. A stranger is 
forcibly struck with the contrast between the magnifi- 
cence of the natural scenery of the place and the forlorn 
appearance of the few buildings and broad streets, with 
their long rows of trees, that the inhabitants call a 
City. The Potomac spreads out into a vast breadth 
immediately below, and is navigable up to the verge of 
Washington ; the back country is very extensive, and 
the river affords a navigation of two hundred miles 
above Georgetown. So early as the year 1798, the 
Members of Congress, then sitting at Philadelphia, 
were repeatedly consulted respecting the assistance to 
be given to the Federal City, but they were nearly all 
opposed to every expedient that promised to prepare 
the public buildings for the reception of the general 
government. Whence the proprietors in the metropolis 
(full half of which they had given to the government) 
suffered considerably. So that in 1802, fifteen hundred 
lots, with their buildings, which had cost two hundred 
thousand dollars, were bought in for less than twenty- 
six thousand, exhibiting a depreciation of nearly seven- 
eio^hths of their whole value. 



J 40 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Yet, in spite of the tardy progress, and the present 
forlorn appearance of the federal city, there are not 
wanting poHticians, who still continue to assert that 
this metropolis is admirably calculated, by its central 
situation, lor tlie seat of American government; not 
only now, but also when the whole continent of North 
America shall be included within the boundaries of the 
United States, and members of Congress shall be sent 
to Washington, from the coast of Labrador, and the 
Isthmus of Darien. But notwithstanding these subli- 
mated schemes, and Utopian visions, many of the more 
sober people in the United States so sensibly feel the 
inconvenience resulting from the seat of government 
being fixed at Washington, that they anxiously Avish for 
its removal to some more civilized and habitable spot. 
For the accomplishment of this purpose, scarcely a ses- 
sion of Congress has passed since the establishment of 
Washington as the metropolis of America, without some 
atteinpt being made, by motion, or petition, to remove 
the seat of sfovernment to some less intolerable place. 

The chief topics of complaint are, the desolate condi- 
tion of the city itself; its remoteness from all the great 
commercial ports and cities of the Union, and the conse- 
quent difficulty and delay in procuring pohtical informa- 
tion, respecting either foreign or domestic events; and 
the additional useless expense, in all the branches of go- 
vernment, entailed upon the nation, by their residence in 
Washington. To all which it has been answered, both 
in and out of Congress, that there must be some nation- 
al metropolis ; that the Federal Constitution empowered 
Congress to fix upon a permanent seat of national go- 
vernment, and that it has accordingly fixed upon 
AVashington, which must therefore, '''-for the honotir of 
the nation^'''' continue to be the American metropolis, 
notwithstanding any temporary inconvenience or mis- 
chief, thence resulting to the Union. Leaving the Con- 
gress to settle the point of honour among themselves, 
it is not difficult to prove, that much injury is derived to 
the United States, from fixing tlie seat of government 
at Washington. All that can be allegfed in favour of 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



141 



the American metropolis, may be reduced to the fol- 
lowing heads; namely, 1st. its central situation, facili- 
tating the means of political information to the members 
of government. 2dli/. Its tendency to become populous 
and wealthy, by being the seat of government. 3d/}/. 
Its commercial and manufacturing capabilities ; and 
4thly. Its pleasant situation, holding out strong induce- 
ments for the residence of gentlemen of independent 
fortunes. 

First. As to its central situation, it happens that roads 
and navigation do not always naturally, and of neces- 
sity, radiate in straight lines from the centre to the cir- 
cumference, as do light and sound ; nor does the na- 
tional existence of the United States depend upon be- 
ing geographically metropolital. For if so, nearly all 
the great empires in Europe would long since have 
been overthrown ; because, with the exception of Ma- 
drid, no great European metropolis is central ; and it re*- 
mains to be proved, that any particular dearth of the 
necessary political information prevails in Paris, Lon- 
don, Vienna, Berlin, or Petersburgh, merely on account 
of not being situated exactly in the heart of their re- 
spective territories ; or that Spain is better informed, 
and more enlightened, than the rest of Europe, because 
she is blessed with a central metropolis. Besides^ 
Washington is not central, since the addition of Louisi- 
ana to the Union ; and will be still less so, when Flo- 
rida and Mexico likewise, shall be belted within the cir- 
cle of our territorial dominion. Madrid, to be sure, is 
regulated in its position, by this supposed geographical 
excellence. Bemg nearly in the centre of the Spanish 
peninsula, it was deemed best fitted for the foundation 
of a capital. But it possesses no other local advantages ; 
and it can never argue the most profound policy to se- 
lect merely advantageous mathematical points, without 
regarding other and more important circumstances; 
but compelling the habits and conveniences of a wliole 
nation, to bend to these unpurposed notions of geogra- 
phical excellence. The Spaniards, by going only 
thu'ty-five miles to the southward, might select many 



J42 RESOURCES OF THE L-MTED STATES. 

beantlful and advantajroous situations on tlie banks of 
the Tagus, either on the plains, in the neigiibourhood 
of Aranjuez, or on the hills of Toledo ; whereas, Ma- 
drid is built on the banks of the Manzanares, which 
is only one of the tributary streams of the Tagus, and, 
during the summer months, is merely a little rivulet, 
crawhng through a wide bed of sand. V/hence, by its 
injudicious position, the capital of Spain is deprived of 
many commercial advantages. 

The geographical centre of a country is not necessa- 
rily the focus of its power ; for that power must be 
derived from its superior wealth, and greater popula- 
tion; neither of which advantages the city of Washing- 
ton now possesses, or, perhaps, ever can possess, since 
places can only become populous and wealthy by their 
progress in commerce and manufactures ; or by the in- 
flux of the opulent and idle, Avith all their apparatus of 
attendants, equipages, and establishments ; or by the 
attractions of a seat of o-overnraent — not one of which 
circumstances will apply in favour of the growth of our 
American metropolis ; for, 

Seco7idlif. The federal government of the United 
States never can, by its attractions and influence, gather 
together a concourse of people large enough to consti- 
tute a moderately sized city. What are the attractions 
of the American government, that will, alone^ ensure a 
great increase of wealth and population to the city of 
Washington.'* Are they inferred from the naked walls 
of the unfinished buildings, scattered here and there 
over the plain } or do they flow from the expenditure 
of the ample revenues, and the establishment of the 
magnificent households of the members of Congress, 
with all their n^enials, retainers, and dependents, that 
swell the train of legislative pomp and official great- 
ness } These very congressmen, consisting of forty 
Senators and about two hundred Representatives, are, 
for the greater part, made up of farmers, tradesmen, 
mechanics, fcclcss physicians, and unpractisin^ law- 
veis, whose wages of legislation amount to six dol- 
lars a day, (averaging less than one thousand dollars a 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. J^^ 

year,) during the session, while they sit brooding and 
engendering laws for the direction of the Union — these 
men, without equipages, pay, unattended by a single 
servant, annually wander up to Congress, from their 
respective districts, in steamboats, sloops, and stages; 
and, during their session in the Federal City, are domi- 
ciled in boarding-houses. What great and permanent 
influx of wealth and population can such legislators and 
statesmen bring into the seat of government ? Nor do 
the executive officers of the United States, as already 
shown, receive salaries sufficient to support even a 
decent exterior to the world. 

Thirdly. Great wonders, however, are expected from 
the extraordinary facilities of promoting commerce and 
manufactures-, which the city of Washington possesses. 
But our manufactures are already carried on in districts 
much more favourably situated for their prosecution, on 
account of the superior number, wealth, and industry 
of their inhabitants, than Washington is, or ever can be. 
And the commerce of the United States naturally finds 
its way to the great outlets and inlets of American na- 
vigation ; it never will flow, in any large streams, to the 
banks of the Potomac, lying at least two hundred miles 
from the ocean, merely because Congress sits and legis- 
lates there ; while there are so many great cities in the 
Union, so much better calculated for all the purposes 
of trade ; while the great seaports of Boston, New- 
York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston, and New- 
Orleans, are so admirably fitted by their natural advan- 
tages, as well as their acquired weight of capital, popu- 
lation, skill, and industry, to retain and increase the 
ample commercial operations, which they have long car- 
ried on with such immense benefit to the whole coun- 
try. Besides, Alexandria, lower down on the Potomac, 
and nearer the sea, intercepts all the foreign trade car- 
ried on in that navigation, before it can come to Wash- 
ington ; and Georgetown confers upon the Federal City 
a similar kindness, by engrossing to itself all the inland 
trade that is floated down the Potomac from the interior 



144 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

settlements and plantations of Virginia and Maryland ; 
so that Washington is perpetually barred, by the very 
nature of its position, from ever becoming a great com- 
mercial, or manufacturing city. 

It only remains. Fourthly^ To examine how far the 
pleasantness of its situation might induce the independ- 
ent gentlemen of the United States to fix their resi- 
dence in Washington. What seductions of pleasure 
are to be found in a place, which, in the summer, is too 
hot for any person who can fly from it to endure ; and 
which, in winter, is remarkable for the dearness, scanti- 
ness, and badness of all kinds of accommodations and 
conveniences, would require much argument and more 
sophistry to show. And even if Washington were 
so pleasantly situated as to induce a desire of living in 
it, who are the gentlemen of independent fortune that 
will flock thither? Such independent gentlemen are a 
V€ry rare order of beings in the United States, owing to 
the infancy of the nation, the form and substance of its 
political institutions, and more particularly to the very 
general custom of dividing the property, both real and 
personal, of a family in equal portions among all its 
members. Indeed, nearly every State in the Union has 
abolished the law of entails, and the rights of primoge- 
niture, and adopted the English statute of distributions, 
for the disposition of real as well as personal estate. 
Almost all the men, in this country, are employed in 
prosecuting some profession, trade, or calling, as the 
means of their subsistence ; whence the number of opu- 
lent men, not engaged in actual business, is very small 
throughout the Union. Nay, even if they were more 
numerous, while the separate States remain distinct and 
independent sovereignties, the seat of the general go- 
vernment never can present so many inducements to the 
unemployed wealthy to crowd thither, as will always 
be found in their own respective States, where their in- 
fluence must be greater and more perceptible ; and 
where the perpetual fluctuations of the executive and 
legislative bodies continually hold out objects to stimu- 
late their ambition. 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 14-') 

Hence, Washington cannot^ within any reasonable pe- 
riod to come, grow into a large and commodious city ; 
seeing that it holds out no attractions of residence to 
the opulent and unemployed ; possesses no great capa- 
bilities of commerce or manufactures ; is the seat of a 
very meagre and ill-paid government; and is wo^ well 
situated for obtaining, speedily and correctly, the politi- 
cal information necessary to guide the movements of 
the American administration with sagacity and wisdom. 
The rca/, the efficient cause of fixing, and continuing 
the seat of the general government in the district ot 
Columbia, is to be found in the determination to entail 
upon the State of Virginia the chief sway and influ- 
ence over all the rest of the Union ; and to check the 
career of the northern and middle States, whose far su- 
perior capacities, both physical and moral, in popula- 
tion, wealth, industry, and intelligence, would eventually 
sink Virginia into the rank of a second-rate sovereignty, if 
the seat of the national government were on the northern 
line ; and the northern States were permitted to avail 
themselves of all their agricultural and commercial ad- 
vantages. Whereas now, the Virginians having the 
seat of government within their own territory, make it 
the focus of their own political intrigues ; and by ma- 
naging the people without doors, in the ditierent States, 
they return nearly what members to Congress they 
please ; and induce them to legislate in accordance with 
the scheme of Virginian policy ; which never has been 
favourable to large and liberal views of commercial en- 
terprise. 

Indeed, it is almost impossible that there ever can be 
a wise and efficient administration of the American go- 
gernment, while its seat continues at Washington ; be- 
cause no practical information, upon any subjects of im- 
portance to the well-being of the community, can be 
obtained there. If advice be wanted on any great po- 
litical or commercial question, no advice can be had^ 
for no statesmen or merchants reside at Washington ; 
and neither public nor private hbraries are to be found 
"there : whatei'cr wisdom is required, must be derived 

19 



146 RESOURCES OF THE VNITED STATES. 

from the members of Congress themselves. Add to 
this, that there is no weight of population, talents, pro- 
perty, or character, to regulate and influence the dis- 
cussions of Congress, so as to restrain that venerable 
body from too often enacting absurd and oppressive 
laws. If the seat of government were fixed in any one 
of the large and populous cities, which adorn and 
strengthen the more civilized parts of the Union, the 
members of Congress would not dare to pass such acts, 
as they have too frequently passed, while sitting as le- 
gislators in the district of Columbia. For they would 
be assailed on all sides, out of doors, by the talents, in- 
formation, character, and influence, of the more intelli- 
gent part of the community ; and by the popular indig- 
nation of their more unthinking brethren of the multi- 
tude. 

But nows the members of Congress go up from all 
quarters of the Union to Washington ; and generally, 
carrying with them only moderate natural capacities, 
and no very profound acquaintance with the great poli- 
tical relations subsisting between the United States, 
and the other sovereignties of the world ; they assem- 
ble together in the Senate and House of Representa- 
tives, and hurry through into statutes all sorts of bills ; 
the meaning and import of which they do not always 
know; and concerning the probable results of which, 
they cannot sometimes even guess ; but they obey the 
directions of their civil commanders, the leaders of the 
Virginian dynasty. And having performed these feats 
of legislation, the congressmen retire to their respect- 
ive domiciles ; and congratulate each other upon their 
deliberative sagacity and wisdom, without any dread of 
encountering the ridicule or reproach of an intelligent 
human being, amidst the gross population, so thinly scat- 
tered over the naked metropolis of America. The em- 
bargo of 1807, 1H08, and 1609, that suicidal act, which 
at one death-stroke cut asunder all the sinews of na- 
tional industry, wealth, and reputation, was absolutely 
carried through the Senate of the United States in the 
litde compass oi four hours; the three readings of the 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



147 



bill being forced onward, one after another, with all the 
rapidity of guilt ; and when the two or three really wise 
and practical statesmen, who at that period happened 
to be in the Senate, and who foresaw the ruinous conse- 
quences of that miserable measure, requested the go- 
vernment party to pause, until they could obtain some 
correct information as to its probable effects upon the 
mercantile and agricultural interests of the country, 
they were answered, that the American Senate wanted 
no political information ; that its collective wisdom was 
fully adequate to provide laws for promoting the welfare 
of the Union ; and accordingly, the American Senate, in 
its collective wisdom, did, in the space of four hours, 
take up, consider, and pass into a law, an act laying a 
perpetual embargo on all the commerce of the United 
States. 

Above all, the seat of government being fixed at 
Washington, gives full play and opportunity for the ex- 
ercise of Virginian influence to acquire complete ascen- 
dency over the other portions of the Union. Virginia 
is the largest of all the United States : its laws, forbid- 
ding real property to be attached for debt; the custom 
of leaving the landed estates of the family to the eldest 
son, in hereditary succession ; the power of voting, in 
proportion to the number of negro slaves upon each 
plantation, (the slaves amounting to about half the po- 
pulation of the State ;) the proprietary qualification of a 
considerable freehold required in every white voter ; to- 
gether with some other circumstances, in their State 
constitution, laws, and customs, all confer upon the 
Virginians very great political advantages, and enable 
them to act in a compact body, for the purpose of per- 
petuating their dominion over the middle and northern 
States, throughout which, they encourage the preva- 
lence of democracy by every means in their power, 
while they do not suffer it even to exist within the pre- 
cincts of their own State. For by excluding all free- 
men, who have no freehold, from voting ; by themselves 
possessing votes, according to tlie number of their 



148 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES, 

slaves ; by transmitting their landed property in hercdi*. 
tary succession ; and by freeing themselves from the 
embarrassments attending the subjection of their lands 
to attachment for debt, the planters of Virginia have 
erected themselves into a feudal aristocracy of untitled 
and uablazoned peers, and manage their affairs so 
adroitly as to give laws to the rest of the Union. 

By the esprit du corps, which actuates every Vir- 
ginian landholder, and by the constitutional policy 
which blends together the executive and legislative, and 
in some measure the judicial departments and functions 
of Virginia, that State is enabled to spread the web of 
influence over all the elections, as well State as Fe- 
deral, in the Union, so as to secure the appointment of 
proper personages, to be guided and directed by the 
master-hand of its leading politicians ; whence the 
Congressmen generally, and a majority of the State 
legislatures, have long been induced to vote and pass 
laws in conformity with the political views of their Vir- 
ginian lords. Well might the Virginian landholders, 
therefore, so strenuously insist upon continuing the 
seat of government at Washington, lest their influence 
over Congress should be counteracted and defeated by 
the superior intelligence, activity, and virtue, always to 
he found in large and populous cities. Nay, it would not 
be so easy, alter a while, to induce very unqualified 
men to sit in Congress, if the seat of government were 
iixcd in any civilized place, and the Members were 
constantly liable to be assailed for their incapacity by the 
{superior sense and spirit of the inhabitants of the metro- 
polis ; and consequently a wiser order of beings would 
be selected to take upon themselves the very important 
charge of legislating for millions of their fellow-men. 

The next clause of the Constitution is particularly 
important, as relating to the abolition of the slave 
trade ; it runs thus. 

The migration or importation of such persons as the 
States, existing at the time of framing the Federal Con- 
stitution, should think proper to admit, is not to be pro- 



Resources OF THE UNITED STATES. j^g 

iiibited by Congress prior to the year 1808; but a tax, 
not exceeding ten dollars a head, may be imposed on 
such importation. 

In the Northern and Middle States the slaves are 
few; Massachusetts has, by statute, abolished slavery 
altogether within her jurisdiction; New-York, New- 
Jersey, and Pennsylvania have passed acts for its gra- 
dual abolition within their territories; Ohio has pro- 
hibited, by her Constitution, its existence within her 
precincts ; Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South 
Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, and 
Mississippi, keep up a large body of slaves within their 
respective sovereignties, amounting to about one-third 
of their whole population, and making about one-sixth 
of the population of all the United States ; namely, Ma- 
ryland, 150,000; ^Virginia, 460,000; North Carolina, 
254,000; South Carolma, 246,000; Georgia, 173,000; 
Kentucky, 238,000; Tennessee, 102,000; Louisiana, 
57,000; Mississippi, 31,000. Making a total of 
1,711,000. 

If a Heathen poet could exclaim 

*' Hft<5"v yct^ t' et^emi; ctTrocttvvTcCt ev^voTrx Zivi 
Av£§oi cvr ctv fi.iv koctx SovXiai tifix^ tXr,(rt)>y* 

■>yhat ought a Christian philosopher to think ? During 
the session of Congress, in the winter of 1816-7, a So- 
ciety was established at Washington, for the purpose of 
colonizing the free people of colour. The citizens of 
the Southern States have long experienced the evils re- 
sulting from the slave system. They are kept in con- 
tinual alarm and fear of an insurrection of the slaves 
themselves ; and the free blacks are so numerous and 
profligate, as to be a curse and pestilence to all our 
large cities. Nay, even in the Northern and Middle 
States, where they are better educated than in the 
South, their habits are so vitious, as to render them a 
burden on the poor-rates, and continual candidates for 
the State-Prison. It is said, that some of the Southern 



150 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

planters begin to be convinced that their lands may be 
tilled to greater advantage by free white labourers than 
by negro slaves. If this conviction should spread, it 
may eventually lead to the abolition of slavery all over 
the United States. The intention, at present, on the 
part of the Colonization Company, is to settle as many 
free blacks as they can induce to go, on the banks of 
the river Sherborough, some distance south of Sierra 
Leone, under the protection of England, and supply 
them with suitable agricultural implements, school- 
masters, and religious teachers, n this benevolent 
scheme should succeed, it may become a powerful 
means of christianizing and civilizing the immense Con- 
tinent of Africa, contaming a hundred and fifty millions 
of Mahomedans and Pagans, steeped in ignorance, su- 
perstition, brutality, vice, and crime. Sir James Lucas 
Yeo^s late letter to the British Admiralty throws much 
light on the slave trade as it now exists, and on the 
state of Africa. 

The nations of antiquity most celebrated for counte- 
nancing the system of domestic slavery were the Jews, 
Greeks, Romans, and ancient Germans ; but it has been 
of almost universal prevalence. Its beginning may be 
dated from the remotest periods in which there are any 
traces of the history of mankind. It commenced in the 
barbarous stages of human society ; and was retained 
even among nations far advanced in civilization. By the 
ancient Germans it was continued in the countries which 
they overran, and was thus transmitted to the various 
kingdoms and states that arose in Europe, out of the 
ruins of Western Rome. In process of time, however, 
this species of servitude gradually fell into decay in most 
parts of Europe ; and, amongst the various causes which 
contributed to this essential alteration in the whole sys- 
tem of European society, none, probably, were more 
effectual than tlie uniform experience of the disadvan- 
tages of slavery itself; the difficulty of continuing it, 
amidst the growing civilization of commercial enterprise 
and Industry, and a progressive persuasion that the op- 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. J5j 

pression and cruelty, necessarily incident to its existence, 
were incompatible with the religious doctrines and the 
pure morality of the Christian dispensation. 

Such was the expiring state of domestic slavery in 
Europe, at the commencement of the sixteenth century, 
when the discovery of America, and of the western and 
eastern coasts of Africa, gave occasion to the introduc- 
tion of a new species of slavery, which took its rise from 
the Portuguese, who, in order to supply the Spaniards 
with persons able to sustain the fatigue of cultivating 
their new possessions in America, particularly in the 
West-India Islands, opened a trade between Africa and 
America, for the sale of negro slaves. This execrable 
commerce in the blood and sinews — the bones and mar- 
row of the human species — was begun in the year 1508, 
when the first importation of negro slaves was made into 
Hispaniola, (now St. Domingo,) from the Portuguese 
settlements on the western coasts of Africa. The em- 
ployment of slaves in colonial labour was not long con- 
fined to the Spaniards, but was soon adopted by the 
other European nations, as they acquired possessions in 
America. In consequence of this general practice 
negroes became a very considerable article of merchan- 
dise in the commerce between Africa and America ; and 
domestic slavery struck so deep a root, that the nine- 
teenth century had actually commenced before the pow- 
ers of Christendom interfered to restrain the progress 
of the slave trade. 

In the year 1803 the general government of the Uni- 
ted States passed an act of Congress, prohibiting the 
importation of negro slaves into any part of the Union, 
after the commencement of the year 1 808 ; in the year 
1 806 the British parliament abolished the importation of 
negro slaves into any part of the territories, home or 
colonial, of the empire. In 1815 Napoleon, on his re- 
turn from Elba, abolished the slave-trade in France ; 
which abolition was confirmed by a subsequent decree 
of the present King. The Spaniards and Portuguese 
still continue this detestable traffic in human flesh ; and 
the domestic slavery of the negroes is maintained in 



1^2 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

nearly all the American colonies of Europe, whether 
continental or insular, and in these United States, parti- 
cularly those of the south and west. 

Slavery is an absolute evil, unqualified by any alloy of 
good ; it implies an obligation of perpetual service, which 
nothing but the consent of the master can dissolve. It 
also generally gives the master an arbitrary power of 
administering every sort of bodily correction, however 
severe and inhuman, not immediately affecting the life 
or limb of the slave. Nay, sometimes even these arc 
left exposed to the unrestrained will of a capricious 
master; or they are protected by paltry fines, and other 
slight punishments, too inconsiderable to prevent ex- 
cessive cruelty ; as was exemplified in that South Caro- 
lina master, who, in the year 1811, after lashing his 
negro slave most unmercifully, compelled another of his 
negroes (the intimate companion and friend of the per- 
son punished,) to sever his head from his body with an 
axe, while he was held down on a block by his fellow- 
slaves. For this attrocious and deliberate murder the 
master was punished by the imposition of a small fine, 
prescribed by statute. If he had stolen a horse in South 
Carolina, and had been found guilty of the offence, the 
laws of that State would have hanged him; but the de- 
liberate murder of his fellow-creature was commuted 
for a few dollars. God made of one blood all the nations 
of the earth ; but the Bible is not often the manual of a 
slave-holder. 

Slavery creates a legal incapacity of acquiring pro- 
perty, except for the master's benefit. It allows the 
master to transfer over, and alienate the person of the 
iilave, in the same manner as he alienates and transfers 
any other species of goods and chattels. Servitude de- 
scends from parent to child, with all its severe append- 
ages. This catalogue of misery is nothing more than a 
faithful description of every kind of personal slavery, 
whether existing under the municipal laws of ancient 
Greece and Rome, or the institution o(villenage in feudal 
Europe, during the dark ages, or the present condition 
of negro bondmen ; excepting that the remnant of vilkyH 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 253 

slavery, which is altogether aboHshed in England and 
France, but still lingers, under various denominations, in 
some of the countries of continental Europe, particularly 
in Italy, Austria, and Russia, is considerably qualified in 
favour of the slave, by the humane provisions, and grov^^- 
ing civilization of modern times. The bare vieAv of the 
condition of slavery is sufficient to point out its perni- 
cious consequences to those communities where it is 
suffered to exist. It corrupts the morals of the master, 
by freeing him from those legal restraints, with respect 
to his slave, so necessary for the control of the human 
passions, so beneficial in promoting the practice, and 
confirming the habit of virtue. It is also dangerous to 
the master; because his systematic oppression excites 
all the worst emotions of implacable resentment and 
liatred in the bosom of the slave; the extreme misery 
of whose condition continually prompts him to hazard 
every peril for the gratification of revenge ; and his situ- 
ation furnishes him with frequent opportunities of slaking 
his thirst of vengeance in the blood of his oppressor. 
Accordingly, the planters of our southern States, and of 
the West-Indies generally, are kept in perpetual alarm 
and horror, lest an insurrection of their slaves should 
consign them to the doom which the French masters 
experienced in the massacres of St. Domingo. 

To the slave himself, personal bondage communicates 
all the afflictions of life, without affording him the re- 
compense of a single delight, physical, intellectual, or 
moral. It stifles all the growth of native excellence, 
by denying the ordinary means and motives of human 
improvement. It is likewise full of peril to the com- 
monwealth, by the radical, the heart corruption of those 
citizens on whose exertions of virtuous patriotism 
its prosperity so essentially depends ; and by admit- 
ting within its bosom a vast multitude of persons, who, 
being excluded from the common benefits of its po- 
litical Constitution, are necessarily interested in de- 
vising the means of its destruction. In whatever light 
we view it, domestic slavery is a most pernicious insti- 
tution — more immediately to the victim, who writhes in 

20 



154 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



convulsive agony under its scorpion lash; indirectly to 
the master, who riots in uncontrolled dominion ; and 
eventually to the State itself, which suffers such a lep- 
rous instilment to be poured into all the veins and arte- 
ries of the body politic. 

It must, however, be remembered that the fatal ten- 
dencies of personal bondage to corrupt and destroy 
individuals, domestic society, and the communhy at 
large, are slackened in our southern States, by some 
favourable circumstances, which do not exist in the 
West-Indian colonies of the European powers. The 
most important of these are the much less disproportion 
between the number of slaves and free men, there being 
in many of the West-India islands ten blacks to one 
white; whereas, in none of our States does tlie black 
more than equal the white population; — the superior 
order of the permanent free inhabitants, more especially 
of the great planters, w^hose native talents are deve- 
loped by liberal education, and whose manners are 
polished by all the refinements of well-bred society ; 
whereas, the greater portion of West-Indian planters 
are needy and desperate adventurers from Europe, who 
pass their temporary residence in the colonies m igno- 
rance, luxurious rioting, brutal sensuality, gaming, cru- 
elty, and every kind of vitious indulgence, until they 
either perish there, or amass enough treasure from the 
tears and blood of their negroes to return home, and 
corrupt the morals of the neighbourhood where they 
settle ; — the very superior condition and accomplish- 
ments of the female portion of our southern community, 
compared with that of the West-Indies, and the vicinity 
of sister States, bound up in the same girdle of political 
confederacy, but steadily and systematically discour- 
aging the existence of domestic slavery within the limits 
of their own territorial jurisdiction. 

Nevertheless, on the score of humanity to negroes, 
our slave-holding States have nothing to boast ; at least 
so far as relates to the provision of the municipal law. 
Our southern planters exercise the lash at their own 
discretion ; they pay a small money-fine for the murder 



JRESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. |^g 

of their slaves, and they occasionally subject them to 
very severe bodily torture. The United States afford 
no instance of a master being capitally punished for 
killing his slave ; yet, in the British West-Indies, some 
few years since, Mr. Hodge, a planter of large fortune, 
a magistrate and a member of the executive council, 
was publicly hanged, at noon-day, after a jury of his 
countrymen had found him guilty of excessive cruelty 
to the negroes on his plantation. 

In South Carolina the negro slaves are, by law, burned 
alive for the crimes of arson, burglary, and murder. So 
lately as the year 1808, two negroes were actually 
burned alive, over a slow fire, in the midst of the market- 
place, in the city of Charleston. What must be the 
code of municipal law; what must be the state of pub- 
lic feeling, in respect to the v/retched African race, that 
could suffer two human beings to be gradually consum- 
ed by fire, as a public spectacle, in the nineteenth cen- 
tury, in the midst of a city containing nearly twenty 
thousand nominal Christians; and the best of all possi- 
ble republicans, who profess to look with scorn upon 
the tyrants, and with compassion upon the slaves of 
Europe ! 

By the provisions of the Federal Constitution the privi- 
lege of the writ of habeas corpus cannot be suspended, un- 
less required by the public safety, in cases of rebellion or 
invasion. No bill of attainder, or ex post facto law can 
be passed. No capitation, or other direct tax can be 
laid, unless in proportion to the census or enumeration 
directed to be taken by a preceding provision of the 
Constitution. No tax or duties can be laid on articles 
exported from any State. No preference can be given 
by any regulation of commerce or revenue, to the ports 
of one State over those of another ; nor can vessels, 
bound to or from one State, be obliged to enter, clear, 
or pay duties in another. No money can be drawn 
from the Treasury, but in consequence of appropriations 
made by law ; and a regular statement and account of 
the receipts and expenditures of all public money must 
be published, from time to time. No title of nobility 



156 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

can be granted by the United States, and no person, 
holding any office of profit or trust under thera, can. 
without consent of Congress, accept any present, emo- 
lument, office, or title, from any King, Prince, or foreign 
State. No State can enter into treaty, alliance, or con- 
federation, grant letters of marque and reprisal, coin 
money, emit bills of credit, make any thing but gold and 
silver coin a tender in payment of debts; pass any bilt 
of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obli- 
gation of contracts, or grant any title of nobility. No 
State can, without consent of Congress, lay any imposts, 
or duties on imports or exports ; except what may be 
absolutely necessary for executing its inspection laws ; 
and the net produce of all duties and imposts, laid by 
any State on imports or exports, must be for the use 
of the Treasury of the United States ; and all such 
laws be subject to the revision and control of Congress. 
fVo State can, without consent of Congress, lay any 
duty on tonnage, keep troops, or ships of war in time of 
peace, enter into any agreement or compact with ano- 
ther State, or with a foreign power, or engage in war, 
unless actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as 
will not admit of delay. 

The reader may receive much valuable information 
upon American affairs, relating to the government, laws, 
institutions, and policy of the United States, by a peru- 
sal of the following works, to the first of which, in parti- 
cular, the preceding pages have been greatly indebted ; 
namely, Mr. Smith's " Comparative \ iew of the Con- 
stitutions of the several States with each other, and 
with that of the United States, exhibiting, in tables, the 
prominent features of each Constitution, and classing 
together their most important provisions, under the 
several heads of administration, with notes and obsei-va- 
tions." The Federalist was written conjointly by 
General Hamilton, Mr. Jay, and Mr. Madison. Mr. 
Jay wrote only a few of the earlier papers; Mr. Madi- 
son wrote some of the historical essays ; and the chief 
portion of the work was executed by General Hamilton. 
In depth and extent of political wisdom, in the philoso- 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. I5.7 

phy of jurisprudence, in comprehension and elevation of 
national views, in high and blameless honour, in pro- 
found and luminous ratiocination, in nervous and manly 
eloquence, in lofty and incorruptible patriotism, the 
American FederaHst has no superior, and very few 
equals, in all the volumes of political economy, contain- 
ing the lucubrations of the greatest sages and statesmen 
of modern Europe, whether of England, France, Ger- 
many, Italy, Spain, or Holland. 

Pacificus was written to defend and encourage the 
impartial, persevering neutrality of the United States, 
during the whole conflict between revolutionary France 
and England ; a conflict that grew out of the Jacobini- 
cal insolence, intolerance, and aggression of the French 
revolutionary government ; and for a season, swept along 
all the continent of Europe down its tide of ruin and 
degradation. No higher commendation can be given of 
this work, than to say that it is altogether the compo- 
sition of General Hamilton. Camillus was written to 
defend and explain Mr. Jay's Treaty with England, 
concluded in November, 1794; that treaty, to which the 
United States were indebted for a continual stream of 
prosperity and wealth, unexampled in the history of na- 
tions. The commercial part was written by Mr. Rufus 
King, formerly American minister near the Court of 
St. James's ; and the political portion by General Ha- 
milton. The whole performance displays the highest 
evidence of the sound judgment, extensive information, 
and powerful and pointed reasoning of the two distin- 
guished statesmen who composed it. The American 
Remembrancer contains a large mass of essays, resolu- 
tions, and speeches for and against Mr. Jay's Treaty. 
The chief opponent of Camillus was the late Chancel- 
lor of the State of New-York, Mr. Livingston. This 
collection exhibits much talent and violence, both per- 
sonal and legislative; and presents an ample and in- 
structive picture of the public mind, during one of the 
most trying and turbulent periods in the national career 
of the United States. 



J 58 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

The American Museum is in thirteen octavo volumes, 
and amidst much idle trash, and multifarious nonsense, 
contains a large portion of valuable information, relating 
to the agriculture, commerce, manufactures, politics, 
morals, manners, national character, natural and civil 
history, biography, law, and state documents of Ame- 
rica, from the beginning of the year 1787, to the end of 
the year 1792, a most interesting period, during which 
the federal Constitution was framed, and carried into 
practical effect. The collection of American State pa- 
pers, of which ten octavo volumes have been recently 
published at Boston, is a most valuable addition to our 
stock of information, respecting the government and 
policy of the United States. 

If the papers of the late General Hamilton were pub- 
lished, either in a connected narrative form; or a judi- 
cious selection of them were made, and given to the 
public, an immeasurable volume of light would be shed 
upon the internal structure, the home administration, 
and the foreign relations of the American government; 
upon the laws and polity, the commerce and manufac- 
tures of the United States ; upon all that tends, directly 
or indirectly, to subserve the best interests, and promote 
the national strength, prosperity, and honour of our 
federative republic. 

In the ancient republics of Greece and Rome, one 
man used to excel in many various departments of in- 
tellectual greatness; the same man was an illustrious 
warrior, statesman, lawyer, and orator. But the more 
minute division of labour in modern times, is satisfied 
with excellence in a single vocation, and we are ready 
to pronounce a man great, if he be a skilful general, or 
a profound lawyer, or a wise statesman, or an able wri- 
ter, or an eloquent speaker. General Hamilton, how- 
ever, united all these high characters in himself; for he 
was unquestionably the greatest lawyer, statesman, 
financier, orator, and writer of his own country, and 
perhaps of the age in which he lived. Hamilton was 
one of the nevraSAo*, but with this distinction in hjs fa- 
vour, that he won the prize in every contest. 



RESOURCES OF THE UMTED STATES. 



159 



On the subject of representation generally, the ex- 
ckision of cabinet ministers from the legislature, the al- 
lowing scanty stipends to public servants, and some 
other topics intimately connected with the wise and effi- 
cient administration of government, much very valu- 
able instruction might be obtained by a careful perusal 
of the papers on Parliamentary reform, scattered 
throughout the Edinburgh Review; and more espe- 
cially, the article on Cobbett's Register, in the tenth 
volume ; a political discussion, which for depth, clear- 
ness, comprehension, and liberality, has probably never 
been surpassed. 

The Federal Constitution vests the executive power 
in a President of the United States, who holds his office 
during the term of four years, and, together with the 
Vice President^ chosen for the same period, was original- 
ly elected thus : Each State appoints, at the discretion 
of its legislature, as many Electors as itself has Senators 
and Representatives in Congress. But no Senator or 
Representative, or person holding any office of trust or 
profit under the IJnited States, can be appointed an 
Elector. The Electors meet in their respective States, 
and vote by ballot for two persons, one of whom, at 
least, must not be an inhabitant of the same State with 
themselves. They make a list of all the persons voted 
for, and the number of votes for each, which they sign, 
certify, and transmit, sealed, to the seat of government 
of the United States, directed to the President of the 
Senate, who, in the presence of the Senate and House 
of Representatives, opens all the certificates, and the 
votes are counted. He who has the greatest number of 
votes is President, if that number make a majority of 
all the Electors appointed. In choosing the President, 
the votes are taken by States, the representation from 
each State having one vote; a quorum for this purpose 
consists of a Member or Members from two-thirds ol" 
the States; and a majority of all the States is necessary 
to a choice. After the choice of a President, the per- 
son having the greatest number of votes of the Electors 
is Vice-President. Congress may determine the time of 



I (»Q RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

choosing Electors, and the day on which thej shall give 
their votes — the day being the same throughout the 
United States. The President must be a natural born 
citizen, or a citizen oi the United States at the time of 
adopting the Federal Constitution, and be thirty-five 
years old, and have been fourteen years a resident 
within the United States. I« case of the removal of the 
President from office, or of his death, resignation, or 
inability, the same devolves on the Vice-President, and 
Congress may, by law, provide for the case of removal, 
death, or inability, both of the President and Vice-Pre- 
sident, declaring what officer shall act as President until 
the disability be removed, or a President elected. 

By the I2th article of the amendments to the Federal 
Constitution, it is provided that the Electors shall name 
in their ballots the person voted for as President, and 
in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-Presi- 
dent; but no one, constitutionally ineligible as Presi- 
dent, shall be eligible as Vice-President of the United 
States. 

This amendment is no improvement. The design of 
the original Constitution was to put two efficient persons;, 
at least, in nomination for the presidency ; one of whom 
being chosen, the other would be competent to fill the 
office in the event of any accident befalling the Presi- 
dent. But, because in the year 1801, Mr. Burr had 
nearly jostled Mr. Jefferson out of the presidency, this 
amendment was introduced, in order to pre\ent any 
future collision between the presidential and vice-presi- 
dential candidates. The consequence has been, that 
not a single efficient person has been elected to the 
vice-presidency since this amendment became part of 
the Constitution. The office, ever since that time, ap- 
pears to have been designated either for superannuated 
and decrepit men, or for persons peculiarly marked by 
their mental imbecility, and individual unimportance. 

The Constitution provides, that the President shall 
be elected by Electors appointed by the State legisla- 
ture, and prohibits Congressmen from having either vote 
f)r influence in the matter. This provision of the Con- 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 261 

stitution also Mr, Jefferson has annulled, by a practical 
amendment called a caucus. This felicitous invention 
is carried into full effect, bj convening a meetirig of all 
the democratic Members of Congress, as well Senators 
as Representatives, to settle among themseices, in the 
City of Washington, who shall be the next President 
and Vice President. Which being done, they send cir- 
culars to every State, setting forth the candidates tliey 
recommend, who, as a thing of course, are voted for by 
all the Electors in the democratic States. In this man- 
ner Mr. Madison was made President ; and thus, also, 
Mr. Munroe was chosen, although with some difficulty, 
as the democratic Congressmen were, at first, in a ma- 
jority for Mr. Crawford, of the State of Georgia. But, 
as Virginia could not permit a President of the United 
States to be produced without the pale of her own do- 
minion, she having filled the presidential chair with her 
own citizens twenty-four out of the twenty-eight years 
which have elapsed since the establishment of the Fe- 
deral Constitution, Mr. Crawford himself and his friends 
were induced, after two or three meetings of the cau- 
cus, to yield to the Virginian claims of Mr. Monroe, 
who was accordingly nominated ; whereupon the usual 
circular was sent to the several States, whose legisla- 
tures accordingly appointed Electors who voted for 
Mr. Monroe, who was elected President. 

This is, in effect, taking the election of President of 
the United States out of the hands of the people, and 
transferring it to those of an ohgarchy of Congressmen. 
In March, 1816, the Senate of the United States dis- 
cussed the propriety of amending the Federal Consti- 
tution, by establishing an uniform mode of election, by 
districts, of Electors of President and Vice President. 
The proposition was negatived; but the remarks of Mr. 
llufus King, a Senator from the State of New-York, 
and one of the Members of the General Convention that 
framed the Constitution, on that question, deserve the 
full consideration of every sober statesman. Mr. King 
said, " The States may now severally direct the manner 

21 



J 52 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATOS. 

of choosing their own Electors ; it is proposed that the 
manner shall be prescribed by the Constitution. This 
would be an important change, and an improvement. 
If there was any part of the Constitution, deemed by 
its framers and advocates to be better secured than any 
other against the enterprises which have since occurred, 
it was the very provision on the subject of election to 
the presidency. The idea was, that the action of that 
particular agency, which has since controlled it, was as 
much displaced by the constitutional plan of electing 
the President and Vice President, as could possibly be 
devised. The opinion had been, that all undue agency 
or influence was entirely guarded against; that the 
men, selected by the people from their own body, 
would give their votes in such a manner as to afford no 
opportunity for a combination to change the freedom 
and popular character which naturally belong to the 
electoral bodies. 

" We all know the course which this thing has taken. 
The election of a President of the United States is no 
longer that process which the Constitution contem- 
plated. In conformity with the original view of the 
authors of that instrument, I would restore, as tho- 
roughly as possible, the freedom of election to the peo- 
ple ; 1 would make the mode of election uniform 
throughout the country, by throwing the whole nation 
into as many districts as there are Electors, and let 
the people of each district choose one Elector. Then 
all the people in the country would stand precisely on 
the same footing; and no particular addresses could be 
made to the special interests and particular views of 
particular men, or particular sections of the country, 
riie course now pursued, in this respect, is not entitled 
to that high distinction. On the contrary, our progress 
in government is not for the better ; it is not liKcly, 
hereafter, to be in favour of popular rights. It was 
with the people the Constitution meant to place the 
election of the chief magistrate; that being the source 
the least liable to be corrupt. But if, under the name 



RESOURCES or THE UNITED STATES. J03 

of the liberty of the people, we put this power into 
other hands, with different interests, we place it in a 
situation in which the rights of the people are violated. 
" With regard to the rights of the people, and the 
freedom of tiie country, no man can name a matter so 
important as the choice of the President of the nation. It 
is an infirmity in our natures, that we look for chiefs and 
rulers, either for their superior virtue, or their supposed 
subserviency to the views of those in subordinate situa- 
tions. It is against the evil of the latter principle we 
must guard. The liberties of the people are more af- 
fected by the choice of President, than by any other or- 
dinary political act. In this point, they are vulnerable ; 
here ought the rights of the people and of the States 
to be guarded. Our existence, and the passions of the 
present day, are ephemeral ; public liberty should be 
immortal. Considering the Senate should be to the 
people, and the States, not only the safe guardians of 
their rights, but the protectors of their liberty, I hope 
they will adopt a provision, so nearly connected with the 
perpetuation of both. All experience has shown, that 
the people of any country are most competent to a cor- 
rect designation of their first mag-istrate. So far as his- 
tory affords us light, it leads us to this point; that m 
times of difficulty and peril to a nation, when it is in 
the utmost need of superior talent for its high stations, 
no tribunal is more competent to discern, and select it, 
than the people. Intrigue, turbulence, and corruption, 
may have some sway in quiet times, when all is tran- 
quillity, in regard to the general situation of the country ; 
but when the ship of state is in danger, turbulence 
ceases, and the best men are, by an instinctive power, 
fixed on by the people for their governors. This has 
been wonderfully illustrated by history ; and the best 
designations of magistrates have been produced in this 
way. 

" My sober view is, that as to the election of chief ma- 
gistrate of this nation, nobody is so competent as the 
great body of the freemen to make a proper selection. 
Whether, on this question, their/r5^ impression should ha 



J 5^ RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

taken, is a question of great importance : there would be 
difHcultj in making the returns of tlic votes ; tliosc who 
colJected and compared the votes, might defeat the clioice 
of the people. Not that these objections are insuperable ; 
and the course of things, under the present mode of clioos- 
ing a president, is in its nature pernicious ; and has a ten- 
dency to prevent the object intended by the Constitu- 
tion, of a pure elective magistracy. Men now live, who 
will probably see the end of our government, as we 
now go on ; terminate when it will, the termination will 
not be in favour of public liberty. For five years past, 
I have seen a character developing Itself, the predomi- 
nance of which I fear. Not a people on earth are 
more capable of high excitement than this people. 
During the excitement of the passion, to which 1 refer, 
if a contested election occurs, the gownsmen must 
stand aside ; another character supersedes them ; and 
there can be little difficulty in judging what will be the 
result. The march from military rule to despotism, is 
certain, invariable. Those who think they see the pro- 
bable tendency of our present system, should interpose 
something remedial. The people in this particular, are the 
best keepers of their own rights; and any device to remove 
that power from them, weakens its security. I know 
that this proposition, if agreed to, will break down the 
power of the great States ; I have no objection, if in 
curtailing their power, the same measure regulates the 
rights of the whole nation equally. 1 am willing to let 
the election for the presidency rest wholly on the 
people." 

And in the same debate. General Harper, a Senator 
from Maryland, said, that " as to the main proposition, he 
was decidedly in its favour, for this general reason; that 
its adoption would tend to make the election of Presi- 
dent less a matter of juggle and intrigue than they now 
are. He would not say that it would have the eflect of 
wholly excluding intrigue; of placing this great elec- 
tion on the footing, on which the jjreat men who framed 
the Constitution, vainly imagined they were placing it, 
of a free, unbiassed expression of the public will; but 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. j Q rj 

it would bring it nearer than at present. Party ar- 
rangements and bargains would not be so easy. Bar- 
gains could not be so readily struck with one State for 
this great office, with another for that ; as according to 
the present mode of election. Districting the States 
for electors, would have a tendency to render the pre- 
sidential election more free and independent ; to remove 
it more from the grasp of party arrangements ; to pre- 
vent bargains betAveen profligate agents, and the selling 
of the nation for offices to the highest bidder." 

The President, at stated times, receives for his servi- 
ces a compensation, that can neither be increased nor 
diminished during the period for which he is elected ; 
nor can he receive within that period any other emolu- 
ment from the United States, or any single State. Be- 
fore he enters on the execution of his office, he takes 
the following oath or affirmation. " I do solemnly swear, 
(or affirm,) that I will faithfully execute the olEce of 
President of the United States, and will, to the best of 
my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitu- 
tion of the United States !" The President is com- 
mander in chief of the army and navy of the United 
States, and of the militia of the several States, when 
called into the actual service of the United States. He 
may require the opinion in writing of the principal offi- 
cers, in each of the executive departments, upon any 
subject relating to the duties of their respective offices ; 
and he has power to grant reprieves, and pardons, for 
offences against the United States, except in cases of 
impeachment. He has power, by and with the advice 
and consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided 
two-thirds of the Senators present concur; and he no- 
minates, and by and with the advice and consent of the 
Senate, appoints ambassadors, and other public minis- 
ters, and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all 
other officers of the United States, whose appointments 
are not otherwise provided for in the Constitution, and 
which are established by law. But Congress may by 
jaw vest the appointment of such inferior officers, as 



|5g RESOURCES OF THE UMTED STATES. 

they think proper, in the President alone, in the courts 
of law, or in the heads of departments. 

As to the propriety of vesting the constitutional pow- 
ers, allotted to the President, in that officer, the Feder- 
alist enters into a most elaborate and able discussion, 
more particularly upon the /rea/y-making power, which 
he shares with the Senate. Durino- the session of 
1815—16, Congress discussed, with great ability, the 
propriety of confining the power of making treaties with 
foreign States to the President and Senate, and exclud- 
ing the House of Representatives from all interference 
on that subject. In that debate Mr. Pinckney, late 
American minister in London, and now ambassador 
from the United States to Russia, particularly distin- 
guished himself; and the able speeches of Messrs. Ran- 
dolph, Gaston, Calhoun, Forsythe, and Hopkinson, 
threw great light on some of the fundamental principles 
of the Constitution. The right, asserted by the House 
of Representatives, to interpret and sanction Treaties, 
was negatived; and properly, because the Senate is a 

f)opular body of representatives, and the addition of the 
ower house could furnish no new principle of safety or 
control. The practice of the British House of Com- 
mons, in sanctioning Treaties, is no precedent for the 
lower branch of the American Congress ; because in 
England the Executive is without any check, in the 
conclusion of Treaties, except the subsequent discussion 
and appropriation of the inferior house of Parliament. 
The Lords have no share in the treaty-making power, 
although they, like the crown, are hereditary ; whereas 
our Senate, as well as our executive, is popular and 
elective. 

The British government also, in its collective branch- 
es of Kins^, Lords, and Commons, is all-powerful; and 
the distribution of its respective authorities very much 
blended together. But, under the Federal Constitu- 
tion, the powers arc precisely measured out to each 
branch of the general government, and the power of 
making Treaties with foreign potentates is specifically 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 2 g-^ 

o-iven to the President and Senate, as other powers are 
given separately to the House of Representatives ; and 
others, to all- the departments of government con- 
jointly. 

The President is empowered to fill up all vacancies 
that happen during the recess of the Senate, by grant- 
ing commissions, which expire at the end of their next 
session. He must, from time to time, give Congress in- 
formation of the state of the Union, and recommend to 
their consideration such measures as he may judge 
necessary and expedient. He may, on extraordinary 
occasions, convene either, or both houses ; and if they 
disagree as to the time of adjournment, he may adjourn 
them to what time he thinks proper. He receives am- 
bassadors, and other public ministers ; takes care that 
the laws are faithfully executed, and commissions all 
the officers of the United States. The President, Vice 
President, and all civil officers of the United States, are 
removeable from office on impeachment for and convic- 
tion of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and mis- 
demeanors. 

In many of the States the electors of the President 
are chosen by the people ; in some, by the state legis- 
lature. The Constitution has left this point undeter- 
mined ; it has only given Congress the power to deter- 
mine the time of choosing the electors, and to fix a 
uniform day, throughout the United States, on which 
they shall give their votes. From the executive power 
to pardon, cases of impeachment, as in Britain, are ex- 
cepted in all the American Constitutions ; and in some 
of the States, murder and forgery are also excepted. 

If there be any one principle of municipal government 
more imperatively important than the rest, it is that the 
executive should be one and indivisible. This position 
is most ably enforced and illustrated by General Hamil- 
ton, in the Federalist, The framers of the Federal 
Constitution were too wise to encumber the President 
of the United States with a constitutional council, which 
he is compelled to consult. He is only authorized to re- 
quire of the principal executive officers their opinions in 



] gy RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

writing, on any subject relating to their official duties. 
The several States differ on this part ; some having 
a council, established by the Constitution, which the 
executive must consult, and without whose assent he 
cannot act ; while others have no council. The general 
effects resultinjr from the institution of a constitutional 
council are, that they serve as a cloak to tlie executive, 
to cover him from punishment when he does wrong ; 
and act as obstacles to impede his motions, when he 
•wishes to do right. It is always best that the chief 
magistrate of every republic should act upon his own 
responsibility ; in dillicult questions of the law he can 
consult the attorney-general; and on complicated politi- 
cal cases he can have recourse to the State secretaries, 
and high officers. In a multitudinous executive the 
subdivision of responsibility weakens the hold of public 
opinion and power upon the executive councils and 
measures; in a single executive the responsibility is 
concentred and operative. Wherever a constitutional 
council exists, every act of the executive, whether re- 
lating to appointments to office, or to qualified negatives 
upon the legislature, or to the pardoning of criminals, 
or any other matter, is done by the executive, with the 
advice and consent of such council. 

A notion has long prevailed among a numerous body 
of American politicians, that a vigorous executive is in- 
consistent with the genius of republican government ; 
and, accordingly, not a. single Constitution, State or fede- 
ral, gives sufficient power to the executive. If the posi- 
tion so prevalent with us were true, republican govern- 
ment would be just good for nothing; because the ex- 
perience of all time has shown, that energy in the exe- 
cutive is a leading feature in all good government, 
whatever be its form or substance. It is essential to the 
protection of the commonwealth against the assaults ot 
foreign power; it is equally necessary to the steady 
administration of municipal laws to the protection of pri- 
vate propcity, (the sheet-anchor of human society,) 
from all arbitrary encroachment ; to secure liberty, both 
personal and political, against the intrigues, enterprises, 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. j gQ 

and assaults of ambition, faction, and anarchy. A feeble 
executive implies a feeble execution of the government; 
weakness in high places is never harmless, because it 
involves the ruin of untold millions in its career of folly. 
It is better for a nation that its government should be 
occasionly, decidedly, and vigorously wrong, than 
always feebly and waveringly right. A government 
weakly executed, whatever it may be in theory, and 
how beautiful soever it may appear in manuscript, or in 
print, on paper, or on parchment, is, for all the practical 
purposes of the community, as far as respects the pros- 
perity and happiness of the nation, a bad government. 

Unity, duration, adequate income, and competent 
powers, are all requisite to constitute energy in the 
executive. The observations, at present, must be con- 
fined to the importance of executive unity. A single 
executive, and a numerous legislature, are best adapted 
to unite vigour in the government, with deliberation 
and wisdom in the national councils, and the means of 
conciliating the confidence of the people, and of securing 
their privileges and interests. Now, unity is conducive 
to energy, because decision, activity, secrecy, and de- 
spatch, other things being equal, always characterize the 
proceedings of one man more than those of many men 
acting together ; and in proportion as the number of 
agents is increased, will be the indecision, inactivity, 
want of secrecy, and positive delay in all their move- 
ments. In practice, it is of no moment whether the 
executive unity is destroyed by vesting the power in 
two or more magistrates of equal dignity and authority : 
or by vesting it ostensibly in one man, but subject, in 
whole or in part, to the control and co-operation of 
executive counsellors. The last mode of dividing and 
weakening the executive government is incorporated in- 
to many of our State Constitutions. That of New- 
York provides a Council of Appointment^ consisting of a 
Senator from each of the four great districts of the 
btate, nommated annually by the house of assembly; ol 
this Council the Governor, or administering Lieutenant 
Governor, or president of the Senate, is president, and 

22 



J 70 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

has a casting, but no other vote. This council appoints 
to all the odices of the State, except those provided for 
by the Constitution itself. In New-Jersey tlie Govern- 
or must consult his Council; but it is doubtful if their 
resolutions bind his judgment. In many other States 
the executive council has much more power over the 
Governor than in New-York or New-Jersey. 

A little reflection will show the mischief of dividing 
the executive in any way. Wherever, and whenever 
two or more men are engaged in any common pursuit, 
they are liable to differ in opinion. If it be a high pub- 
lic office, in which they claim equal dignity and powers 
their difference of opinion lessens the respectability, 
weakens the authority, distracts the plans, and slackens 
the operations of government. It also tends to split the 
coumiunity into violent and irreconcileable factions, 
whose mutual animosities continually disturb the public 
peace. It embarrasses the execution of every measure 
from the commencement to its conclusion. It counter- 
acts, without any counterbalancing benefit, the qualities 
most essential to a good executive government; namely, 
vigour and expedition. Above all, in conducting war 
with a powerful enemy, executive energy is the great 
bulwark of national security. 

In addition to this, an executive Council tends directly 
to conceal the faults, and destroy the responsibility of 
government. Owing to the multiplication of the execu- 
tive, it is almost impossible, amidst the mutual accusa- 
tions of the Governor and his Council, to determine on 
whom the blame or punishment of any pernicious mea- 
sure ought to fall. It is shifted from one to another 
with so much political dexterity and legerdemain, that 
the public is bewildered in suspense as to the real author 
of its calamities. In the siugle instance in which the 
(iovernor of New-York is coupled witli an executive 
Council, the appointment to offices, every day's experi- 
ence brings to liglit additional miscliiel'. Without stoop- 
ing to any personal crimination, it cannot be illiberal to 
remark that sometimes scandalous appointments to im- 
portant offices have been made. Indeed, some cases 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. jiyj 

have been so flagrant that all parties have concurred in 
censuring them ; but when inquiry has been made, the 
blame has been laid by the Governor on the members 
of the Council, who, in return, have charged it upon the 
nomination oi his excellency ; while the people are at a 
loss to determine by whose flagitious influence their in- 
terests have been committed to hands so incompetent. 

An executive Council deprives the people of their 
two greatest securities for the faithful exercise of all 
delegated power ; namely, jir$t^ the restraints of public 
opinion, which lose their efficacy alike on account of the 
division of censure, attached to evil measures among a 
number of persons, and the uncertainty on whom the 
blame ought to be fixed ; and, secondly^ the opportunity 
of discovering the actual misconduct of those whom 
they trust, in order to remove them from office, or sub- 
ject them to merited punishment. This part of the 
scheme of government seems to be borrowed from 
England, without any analogy to warrant such a loan 
from a monarchy to a republic. In England the King 
is an hereditary, perpetual chief magistrate ; and, for 
the sake of public peace, can do no wrong; nor is he 
himself accountable for the acts of his administration, 
and his person is sacred. Under such circumstances, it 
is necessary to annex to the monarch a constitutional 
Council, responsible to the people for their advice, and 
for the measures of the executive government. Other- 
wise, there would be no responsibility in the executive ; 
and, in the place of a free government would be substitu- 
ted an unqualified despotism. Yet, in England, the 
King is 7iot bound by the resolutions of his Council; 
although they are answerable for their advice to him. 
He is absolute master of his own conduct, in the exer- 
cise of his office, and may, at his sole discretion, observe 
or disregard the counsel offered to him. 

But in a representative republic, as are these United 
States, where the people themselves are the only unre- 
sponsible sovereigns who can do no wrong, whose ma- 
jesty is inviolable, and whose persons are sacred ; every 
magistrate is, and ought to be, a servant of the public, 



172 liESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

and personally answerable to the nation tor his conduuf, 
while in office; and. consequently, the reason which in 
the British Constitution argues the necessity of an ex- 
ecutive council is strong against the propriety of such 
an institution in this country. Jn the monarchy of Eng- 
land it furnishes a substitute for the prohibited respon- 
sibility of the chief magistrate; but in the American 
republic an executive council only serves to diminish the 
personal responsibility of the chief magistrate himself. 

The general prevalence of an executive council in 
our State Constitutions is also derived, in part, from that 
mistaken maxim of republican jealousy, which considers 
power as safer in the hands of many than of one ; 
whereas the executive authority is more easily confined, 
when single than when multitudinous. It is safer to 
have a single object for popular vigilance and jealousy 
to observe, than to distract attention by a number of 
such objects. All multiplication of the executive is 
dangerous, not friendly to social liberty. For the united 
credit and influence of several individuals must be more 
formidable than the credit and influence of either of 
them separately. The tJtirty tyrants of Athens, the de- 
cemvirs of Rome, and the executive directory of revolu- 
tionary France, were more terrible in their respective 
usurpations, than any o«cof them singly could have been, 
and deluged Athens, Rome, and France with more na- 
tive blood. From either of such combinations America 
would have more to iear and more to suffer, than from 
the criminal ambition of any single President of the 
United States or State Governor. An executive coun- 
cil to a magistrate, who is himself responsible for his 
official acts, is only a drag-chain upon his good inten- 
tions ; the instrument and accomplice of his pernicious 
measures, and an effectual covering and defence of his 
evil deeds. 

The power of pardoning lodged in the hands of the 
executive, and the power of punishing crimes vested in 
the law, must always be taken together as parts of the 
same municipal system. The law is fixed, as to the 
punishment of crime, but a discretionary power is left 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. j-y^ 

in the chief magistrate to moderate the punishment ac- 
cording to the circumstances of commission. The de- 
cree and species of punishment being fixed, best en- 
tsures the personal and pohtical freedom of the people ; 
there being no slavery so miserable, as where the law is 
uncertain in its exposition and application. " Misera 
servitus^ ubi jus, aut vagum, mit incogmtiim.'''' The pu- 
nishment being capital for certain crimes, best answers 
the purposes of terror, by its warning example to 
others ; whence, by punishing the crime severely in one 
instance, its perpetration is, in many instances, pre\^nt- 
ed. And the executive power of moderating, by oc- 
casionally relaxing the severity of capital punishment, 
tempers justice with mercy; and while it secures the 
authority of the laws, does away the imputation of 
making crimes of different degrees of malignity equal, 
by inflicting death alike upon all. 

In most civihzed nations, the power of pardoning cer- 
tain crimes has been given to the executive. It is pe- 
culiarly so in England, whence the United States have 
borrowed nearly all their common and much of their 
statute law. The King's power of pardoning is said by 
the old Saxon jurists to be derived " a lege suce digni- 
tatis.'''' As laws, in order to be just, must be general 
and fixed ; and as it is impossible precisely to graduate 
the scale of punishment to the exact proportion of 
crimes, on account of the incessant variation of circum- 
stances, which renders the same generic crime more or 
less atrocious in degree, it is always prudent to allow a 
resort for pardon to the discretion of the executive, lest 
cases should sometimes occur to justify Cicero's ob- 
servation, that " quandoquidem, summum just est summa 
injuria,'''' And, although laws ought not to be framed 
on principles of compassion to guilt, yet, according to 
the constitution of every free government, justice should 
always be administered in mercy ; and, therefore, it is 
the great duty required from the British executive, by 
his coronation oath, and the act of his government, most 
entirely his own and personal. In some countries the 
power of pardoning in the executive is not sufliiciently 



174 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

secured. In HollantI, for instance, under their old go- 
vernment, before the Dutch were conquered by revolu- 
tionary France, (uhat it is now, I cannot tell, having 
had' no opportunity of examining the Constitution of the 
United INetherlands) there was no power to pardon, 
unless there happened to be a Stadtholder, a magis- 
trate, who was only an accidental part of their muni- 
cipal system. Thus the Dutch republic omitted to 
establish in its Constitution a provision essential to all 
sound policy, as necessary to the welfare of the com- 
munity as justice itself; nay, in the opinion of some of 
the most celebrated jurists, giving to justice a perfection 
of benignity, which did not originally belong to her 
stern and unaccommodating nature. 

In England, during all the varieties and revolutions 
of government, the alternations of tyranny and anarchy 
and well-tempered freedom, the greatest weight has 
always been laid upon the prerogative of pardoning 
lodged in the hands of the executive. Indeed this 
power is a considerable abatement of the severity of 
what is deemed by some able jurists the harshest part 
of the criminal law of England, the law of forfeiture. 
Ever since the union of the two roses, in Henry the 
Seventh and his Queen Elizabeth, the pardoning power 
has generally been employed to the peace and preserv- 
ation of families. In the records of parliament, even in 
the worst times of the most tyrannical dynasties, from 
the reign of the Norman Conqueror to the dominion of 
the arbitrary Tudors and execrable Stuarts, examples 
of the benignant exercise of this prerogative are not 
wanting: and since the revolution, in 1688, in the better 
times of well-balanced liberty, it has been peculiarly 
beneficial. 

It is not, however, to be dissembled that this par- 
doning power has been sometimes abused in England 
and elsewhere. Towards the close of the seventeenth 
century (hirty-fvc thousand criminals were pardoned at 
once, by a general act of grace from the republic ot 
Venice, in order to raise a large sum of money. 
Francis the First of France gave Cardinal Wolsey, 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATfiS- I'jQ 

then on an embassy from Henry the Eighth of England, 
the power of pardoning all criminals in every French 
town through which he should pass. The House of 
Commons petitioned Edward the Third to be less libe- 
ral in pardoning malefactors, on condition of their serv* 
ing him in his continental wars. With what unreflect- 
ing facility the most atrocious criminals are frequently 
pardoned in several of our American states, in order to 
make room for fresh candidates for imprisonment, is too 
notorious to need a comment, and too injurious to the 
community to be passed over in silence. 

By the Federal Constitution, the judicial power of 
the United States is vested in one Supreme Court, and 
such other inferior courts as Congress may, from time 
to time, ordain and establish. The judges, both of the 
supreme and inferior courts, hold their offices during 
good behaviour; and, at stated times, receive for their 
services a compensation, not to be diminished during 
their continuance in office. The judicial power extends 
to all cases in law and equity arising under the Consti- 
tution, the laws of the United States, and treaties made 
under their authority ; to all cases affecting ambassa- 
dors, other public ministers, and consuls ; to all cases 
of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction ; to controversies 
.to which the United States are a party; to controversies 
between two or more States, between a State and citi- 
zens of another State, between citizens of different 
States, between citizens of the same State claiming 
lands under grants of different States, and between a 
State or its citizens and foreign States, citizens, or sub- 
jects. The Supreme Court has original jurisdiction in 
all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers, 
and consuls, and those in which a State is a party. But, 
by the eleventh article of the amendments to the Consti- 
tution, it is declared, that the judicial power of the 
United States shall not extend to any suit in law, or 
equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the 
United States by citizens of another State, or by citizens 
or subjects of any foreign State. 



275 RE.SOl"RCES OF THE UXTTED STATES. 

In all the other cases beforcmentioned (together with 
the exceptions enumerated above) the Supreme Court 
of the United States has appellate jurisdiction, both as to 
law and fact, with such exceptions and under such re- 
gulations as Cono-ress shall see fit to make. The trial 
of all crimes, except in cases of impeachment, must be 
by jury, and the trial held in the State where such 
crimes have been committed ; but when not committed 
within any State, the trial to be at such place as Con- 
gress may, by law, have directed. Treason against the 
United States consists only in levying war against them, 
or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and 
comfort. No person can be convicted of treason unless 
on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, 
or on confession in open court. Congress has power to 
declare the punishment of treason ; but no attainder of 
treason shall work corruption of blood or forfeiture, 
except during the life of the person attainted. 

The American law, both State and federal, differs 
from that of England, in the crime of treason not work- 
ing forfeiture of property, and corruption of blood. 
There are some very able arguments in favour of the 
English doctrine of attainder, in Lord Hardwicke's 
"Treatise on the Law of Forfeiture," and in Bishop 
Warburton's " Divine Legation of Moses." Both these 
great men lay much stress on this punishment operating 
as a strong preventive against the crime, by holding 
up to the culprit the certainty of the extreme infamy, 
and absolute penury of his own immediate descendants 
and kindred, if he persist in perpetrating the forbidden 
act. 

Mr. Smith m his "Comparative View," and the pre- 
sent Chancellor of the State of New-York, in an intro- 
ductory lecture to a Course of l^aw Lectures, delivered 
by him in November, 1794, when Professor of Law in 
Cfolumbia College, have given some very valuable ob- 
sen'ations on the American Judiciarif. The substance 
of these observations, with such additional remarks as 
may occur during the discussion, will be noAV presented ; 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. ] ly'jr 

toi-emising, however, that the State Constitution of New- 
I ork declares, that no judge, either of law or equity, 
shad hold his office after he reaches the age of sixty 
jears. This seems to be a strange constitutional pro- 
vision, that a man must cease to be a judge, as soon as 
he is sixty years; because in the common course of 
events, provided he habitually exercises his mind by 
observation, reading, and reflection, he is wiser^ and 
consequently better fitted to discharge the important 
functions of the judicial office, after ^ than before he 
reaches the age of sixty. The Spartans were so well 
aware of this general truth, at least practically, that they 
did not suffer a man to become an Ephor, or Judge of 
their highest legal tribunal, until he had actually entered 
his sixty-first year. 

The State Constitution of New-Hampshire prohibits 
any judge from continuing in office after he attains the 
age of seventy years. This limitation as to age, is un- 
doubtedly wiser by ten years, than the New-York con- 
stitutional provision, which cashiers a judge as soon as 
he is sixty. All limitations of this kind are foolish and 
cruel ; because they pretend to point out the precise 
time when human intelligence fails ; and then consign a 
man to absolute want, that his life may not falsify their 
prediction of the appointed decay of his intellect. Lord 
Mansfield sate on the King's Bench until he was eighty^ 
and does any sound lawyer find in his decisions, during 
the last twenty years of his judicial career, that incapa- 
city which our New- York Constitution fixes upon a 
judge, the moment he becomes sixty years old } At all 
events, if a limitation be allowable, sixty years of age 
is too early a period. It requires the habitual diligence 
of the greatest part of a man's life, together with good 
sound strong natural talents, to acquire the extent and 
depth of information, and the practical experience, which 
are the essential requisites of an able judge; and to dis* 
qualify him by law, at a period of life when his know- 
ledge and experience could render him most competent 
to the due administration of public justice, does not exhibit 
3 very profoimd degree of political sagacity or wisdom 

23 



J78 RESOURCEtJ OF THE UNITED STATES, 

This limitation is no less cruel than absurd ; for it 
makes no provision for the maintenance of the discarded 
judge. The New-York Constitution, in this respect, 
imitates the conduct of fVederic the Second, of Prussia, 
who boasted, " that he used men as he used oranges, 
he squeezed out the juice, and threw away the rind." 
For it casts a man destitute upon the world, precisely 
at a time when he is not able to provide for himself, by 
adopting any other calling; after it has availed itself of 
the youth and manhood, the time and talents, the learn- 
ing and industry of him, whom it consigns to hopeless 
penury and barren sorrow. The least which ought in 
common justice to be done, is, that if our legislators will 
persist in cashiering a judge for no other crime than 
being sixty years of age, they allow an adequate pen- 
sion for life to those whom they dismiss. 

Perhaps no one component part of the American 
Constitutions involves more momentous effects than our 
judiciary system. Some of the ablest papers in the Fe- 
deralist are devoted to the consideration of this subject. 
The two chief essentials in the organization of this 
branch of the government, are, a proper appointment in 
the first instance ; and an adequate independence, du- 
ring their judicial existence; which last implies a per- 
manent tenure of office, and a fixed competent salary. 

To secure the first object, the appointment of judges 
should be vested in that branch of government, which 
presents the greatest probability of making a good, and 
the most certain responsibility, in the event of making 
a bad choice. The executive, if single, is completely 
responsible; a single chief magistrate will, in general, 
be sufficiently interested in his own reputation, to search 
for able men; a multitudinous executive is under no such 
pressing responsibility ; and a legislative body are al- 
most entirely irresponsible. For voting by ballot, as is 
the fashion in tliis country, their choice is that of no par- 
ticular member, but every one is sheltered from ac- 
countability by the vote of every other person present. 
Besides, most of tiie members are changed either annu- 
ally, or biennially ; and the same body of men, which 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. J79 

elected an unworthy magistrate, existing no longer, 
when his incapacity is discovered, no public shame is 
attached to them as a legislature. The responsibility 
of the executive, although lessened, is not however an- 
nihilated by assigning to a Senate, or Council, a nega- 
tive on his nomination; and it is possible that such a 
negative may sometimes act as a salutary check upon 
executive partiality ; but undoubtedly, as a general rule, 
a divided executive is pernicious ; and there is also, at 
least an equal chance, that a senatorial, or council nega- 
tive, may defeat as many proper nominations, as it may 
prevent improper appointments. 

The independence of the judiciary can be established 
only by an official tenure, during good behaviour, and 
by an adequate compensation for their services, not lia- 
ble to diminution. A limited commission infallibly cre- 
ates a dependence on the authority invested with the 
power of reappointment ; and a precarious compensa- 
tion entails a miserable dependence upon that branch of 
the legislature which holds the pubhc purse. The Con- 
stitution of the United States effectually secures these 
advantages ; for although the Senate possesses a check 
upon the nomination of the President, yet this qualified 
negative is less injurious when applied to the Union at 
large, than in relation to a particular State ; because the 
Senators in Congress, representing their respective 
States, are more likely to be acquainted with the merits 
and character of the person nominated, than the execu- 
tive, who being himself chosen from one particular State, 
cannot ibe expected to be so well informed, as to the 
wants and wishes of the other States. 

The federal judges, when once appointed, hold their 
offices during good behaviour, Avithout any limitation as 
to age ; and receive a fixed annual salary, not subject 
to diminution during their term of service. The sala- 
ries of these judges, like those of all other officers in 
the Union, whether attached to the general, or State 
governments, are not sufficient. Mr, Burke, in his " Re- 
flections on the French Revolution," offers some pro- 



J go RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

found and eloquent observations on the pernicicious pro- 
digality of underpaying the public servants of a country. 

The Constitutions of Pennsylvania and Delaware, 
vest the appointment of the judges absolutely in the 
executive ; and contain every paper requisite to secure 
a good judiciary, except an adequate salary; the Con- 
stitution of New-York, vests the choice of judges in the 
Council of Appointment; those of New-Hampshire, 
Massachusetts, and IVlaryland, in the Governor and 
Council ; those of Kentucky and Louisiana, in the Go- 
vernor with the advice and consent of the Senate ; those 
of Connecticut, Rhode-Island, Vermont, New-Jersey, 
Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Ten- 
nessee, Ohio, and Mississippi, in the legislature. In 
North Carolina, however, the Governor possesses Uie 
power of nomination. 

In most of the States, the official tenure of the judges 
is during good behaviour, with the exception of the li- 
mitation as to age, in New-Hampshire, and New-York; 
for instance, in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Delaware, 
Maryland, Kentucky, Virginia, North and South Caro- 
linas, Tennessee, Louisiana, and Mississippi. In Con- 
necticut and Rhode-Island, the judges are appointed 
annnally ; which is a most lamentable provision, because • 
it renders the judges altogether dependent upon the 
power which creates them ; and what self-confidence can 
men possess, who know that in the course of a few 
months, their term of office expires, and their reappoint- 
ment depends upon the mere pleasure of another body, 
over whom they have neither control nor influence ? 
In Rhode-Island, the people have experienced the full 
benefit of this absurd regulation ; but the patriarchal 
customs, and steady habits of Connecticut, long pre- 
vented her from suffering any very material injury from 
this deformity in her political code ; because it was a 
matter of course, annually to reappoint the same man 
as long as he lived, unless guilty of some flagrant mis- 
conduct. JVow^ however, Connecticut is beginning to 
reap the fruit of this vUra democratic provision ; and 



TKESOURCJES OF THE UNITED STATES, j g j 

bids fair to have all her institutions completely revo- 
lutionized. 

In Vermont, there is still greater danger of an undue 
dependence of the judges on the legislature ; for they 
are not only elected annually, but the Constitution adds, 
" and oftener^ if need be." An annual election of the 
judiciary ought to satisfy democracy herself. In New- 
Jersey, the judges of the superior court are chosen for 
seven, and of the inferior court, for five years. By the 
former Constitution of Pennsylvania, the judges were 
appointed for six years, but the present Constitution has 
had the wisdom to give them an official tenure during 
good behaviour. In Georgia, the judges hold their 
offices only three, in Ohio, seven years. It is, however, 
matter of gratulation, that the judges of this country 
are independent, as to official tenure, except in the 
States of Connecticut, Rhode-Island, Vermont, New- 
Jersey, Georgia, and Ohio. 

The immutability of compensation, except as to in- 
crease, is essential to judicial independence. This is 
secured to the judges in the Constitutions of the United 
States, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Kentucky, South Caro- 
lina, Georgia, Ohio, Louisiana, and Mississippi; and 
indeed in every Constitution made since the establish- 
ment of the Federal government, in 1789, except that 
of Tennessee, which only provides " that the judges 
of the superior court shall, at stated times^ receive a 
compensation for their services, to be ascertained by 
law;" a provision, which places the judges at the mercy 
of the legislature, who, by giving or withholding an 
adequate compensation, exercise a power httle short of 
life and death, according to the doctrine of old Shylock, 
when he says, " You do take my life, if you do take the 
means by which I live." The Tennessee Constitution 
has also another singular provision, namely, " that the 
judges shall not charge juries with respect to matters of 
fact, but may state the testimony, and declare the law." 
This seems to be as much an extreme, one way, as 
Lord Mansfield's doctrine of compelling the jury not to 
intermeddle with the law at all, even when rendering a 



1 82 RESOURCES OF TIlE UMTED STATES. 

general verdict, was an extreme the other way. At all 
events, the jury can never be injured by an able and 
dispassionate charge of an enlightened judge upon the 
tacts of the case, more especially if they shoulcl be nu- 
merous and complicated. 

In New-Hampshire and Massachusetts the judges are 
empowered by the Constitution to give their opinion to 
the Governor and Council, on solemn occasions, and to 
the legislature, on points of law. This provision is of 
doubtful policy; for it seems best, that judges should 
never give their opinions in matters of law except from 
the bench. In England, indeed, they are occasionally 
called upon to deliver their opinions in the House of 
Lords ; and some of the judges are themselves legisla- 
tors, as temporal peers in Parliament. But the separa- 
tion of the great departments of government, the execu- 
tive, legislative, and judicial, is not so accurately and 
extensively established in Britain as it ought to be. And, 
moreover, the occasional blending of these branches to- 
gether is not so dangerous in the powerful and stable 
government of a constitutional and limited monarchy and 
an hereditary aristocracy, as amidst the perpetual fluctu- 
ations of an elective democracy, where the only sure 
bulwark of individual liberty is to be found in the pure, 
unstained administration of justice to all parties in every 
question of property, person, and character. 

In all the State Constitutions, and in that of the United 
States, the judges are removable from their ofRce by 
impeachment. In New-Hampshire, Massachusetts, 
Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Louisi- 
ana, and Mississippi, they are also removable by the 
Governor, on an address of the legislature, for miscon- 
duct not sufficient to require impeachment. In New- 
Hampshire and Massachusetts the Governor and Coun- 
cil may remove, on the address of a majority of both 
houses; in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Kentuc- 
ky, and Mississippi, on the address of two-thirds of both 
houses ; in Louisiana, on the address of three-fourths of 
both houses. During the session of Congress, in 1816-17, 
Mr. Sandford, a Senator from the State of New-York, 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. j g3 

proposed to amend the Constitution of the United States, 
by making the Federal judges removable from office, on 
the vote of two-thirds of both houses of Congress, with 
the consent of the President. This alarming innova- 
tion was not carried into effect ; Mr. King, Senator from 
New- York, and Mr. Fromentin, Senator from Louisiana, 
resisted the motion with great ability and force, and the 
Senate negatived it by an overwhelming majority. 

Such a provision endangers the independence of the 
judges ; because, when party spirit runs high, it would 
not be difficult to obtain an address of a majority, or of 
two-thirds, or even of three-fourths of both houses of 
the legislature to the executive, to remove from office 
a judge, whose chief crime might be the belonging to 
a different political sect from that embraced by the 
dominant faction. In general, the impeachment of the 
judges is framed by the Representatives, and tried be- 
fore the Senate or Council ; but, in Maryland they may 
be removed for misbehaviour, on conviction in a court 
of law. In Virginia, the impeachment of the judges of 
the General Court is preferred by the House of Dele- 
gates, and tried by the Court of Appeals ; and that of 
the judges of the Court of Appeals is tried by the judges 
of the Supreme Court. In North Carolina an impeach- 
ment of the judges may be framed by the assembly or 
grand jury, and tried by a Special Court, appointed for 
thepurpose. 

The American judiciary, both State and Federal, 
possesses an efficacy unknown to the courts of justice in 
other countries ; I mean, the power of bringing the va- 
lidity of a law, a statute^ passed by the legislature, 
whether of a single State or of the United States, to the 
test of the letter and spirit of a written Constitution. In 
Europe it has scarcely ever been contemplated to place 
any constitutional limits to the exercise of legislative au- 
thority. In England, where the Constitution has sepa- 
rated and designated the executive, legislative, and ju- 
dicial departments of government, with greater pre- 
cision than any other nation except the IJnited States, 
the Parliament is still considered paramount and abso- 



IQ4 RESOURCES OF THE tWITED STATES. 

lute, and, says De Lolme, " can do every thing except 
make a man a woman, or a woman a man." And, 
although some of the judges have declared that a statute, 
made against natural equity, was void, yet it is generally 
laid down as a fundamental principle of English law, 
that no act of parliament can be questioned or disputed j 
that, in no case whatever can a judge oppose his own 
opinion and authority to the clear will and declaration 
of the legislature; his province is to interpret and obey 
the mandates of the supreme power of the State. Let 
the inconveniences of a statute be what they may, no 
judge, or bench of judges, can constitutionally dispense 
Avith them; their office is to expound, not make law; 
and, during the last hundred and fifty years, no instance 
has occurred of any English judge declaring an act of 
Parliament void, on account of its being unconstitutional, 
or repugnant to the principles of reason or equity, or 
on any other ground. 

But in the United States the people have established 
certain rights paramount to the power of the ordinary 
legislature ; a precaution essential to security, and neces- 
sary to guard against the occasional triumph and vio- 
lence of party, in a government altogether popular, elec- 
tive, and representative. Without some such express 
provision settled in the original compact, as set forth in 
the written Constitution, and constantly protected by the 
firmness and moderation of the judicial department; the 
equal rights of the minor party w ould probably be often 
disregarded in the conflicts lor political power, and be 
sacrificed to the fury of a vindictive majority. No ques- 
tion can be made in these United States but that all 
legislative acts, contrary to the provisions of the Consti- 
hition, ought to be null and void. The only inquiry is, 
if the legislature itself be a competent judge of its own 
constitutional limits; or the busmess of determining the 
constitutionality of a statute be the fit and exclusive pro- 
vince of the courts of justice ? 

If the legislature be left tlie unresponsible judge of 
its own constitutional barriers, tlie efficacy of this check 
Is lost ; for the legislature would incline to narrow down- 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. |85 

or explain away the provisions of the Constitution, from 
the force of the same popular passion, or some consider- 
ations of expediency, which would lead it to overturn 
private rights, and invade the security of private pro- 
perty, rhe legislative will would then be tne supreme, 
uncontrollable law, as much with as without these con- 
stitutional hmits and safeguards. Nor would the force 
of public opinion (the only restraint then left,) be much 
felt or regarded ; for, if public opinion were sufficient to 
check the tendency to mischief in governments, there 
would be no need of ori2;inal limitations and constitu- 
tional restraints. But all experience teaches, that when 
powerful political rivalries prevail in the commonwealth, 
and parties are thoroughly disciplined and highly hostile, 
every measure of the legislative majority, however 
tyrannical and flagitious, is sure to receive the sanction 
of their constituents ; and every step of the minor party 
will be equally approved of by their adherents, as well 
as indiscriminately rejected, misrepresented, and con- 
demned by the voice and vote of the prevailing faction. 
The courts of justice, therefore, which are organized 
with peculiar advantages, well calculated to exempt 
them, and their judicial proceedings, from the influence 
of faction, and to secure a steady and impartial interpre- 
tation of municipal law, are the most proper power 
among all the departments of government, to keep the 
legislature within the limits of prescribed duty, and 
maintain inviolate the authority of the Constitution. It 
is also an indisputable maxim in American politics, that 
the executive, legislative, and judicial branches should 
be, as far as possible, kept distinct and separate. The 
legislature ought not to exercise the powers of the exe- 
cutive or judiciary, except in clearly specified cases. An 
innovation upon this distribution of power tends directly 
to overturn the due balance of government, and intro- 
duce an unqualified despotism. But the exposition of 
the Constitution is as much a judicial act, and requires 
the exercise of the same legal discretion, as the interpre- 
tation of a law, whether statute or common. The 
courts of justice are, indeed, bound to regard the Con- 

24 



iQg RESOURCES 6f THE UNITED STATES. 

stitution, as a law of the highest nature — the supreme 
law of the land, to which every Inferior or derivative 
legal regulation must conform, and be obedient. 

The Constitution comes from the people in their 
character of plenary sovereignty, when defining the 
permanent conditions of the social alliance between the 
different States of the Union; and, therefore, to contend 
that the courts of justice must adhere implicitly to legis- 
lative acts, without regarding the provisions of the Con- 
stitution, is to contend that the power of the agent 
exceeds that of the principal ; and that the will of only 
one concurrent and co-ordinate department of subordi- 
nate authority ought to control the fundamental laws of 
the sovereign people. This judicial power of deter- 
mining the constitutionality of statutes is necessary to 
preserve the equIllDrium of the American government, 
and to prevent the usurpations of any one department 
upon the powers and privileges of the others. And of 
all the branches of government, in every free country, 
the legislative is most impetuous arid powerful; whence 
the necessity of arming the executive with a negative, 
either absolute or qualified, upon the proceedings of the 
legislature. See some very ingenious reasoning in 
INfentesquieu's Esprit des Loix, and a still abler disquisi- 
tion in the Federalist, on the necessary /}rftf/eca/ separa- 
tion of the executive, legislative, and judicial powers, 
from which it appears that the judicial power is the 
weakest of the three ; and, as it is equally essential to 
the well-being of the commonwealth, to preserve entire 
the power of the judiciary, it ought not to be left ex- 
posed to the attacks of a popular legislature, without 
adequate means of constitutional defence. 

This is one reason why the judges in the State of 
New-York are constitutionally associated with the 
Governor to torm the Council of Revision^ to revise all 
bills about to be passed into laws by the legislature ; 
and this singular association, giving a kind of legislative 
power to the judiciary, renders some of the preceding 
observations less applicable to the Constitution of New- 
York than to that of any other free government. No- 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. j gy 

vertheless, as a general principle of political economy, 
and its kindred science, municipal jurisprudence, it will 
be found that the right of expounding the Constitution, 
as well as the statute law, is the most fit and effectual 
weapon by which the courts of justice can repel all hos- 
tile assaults, and guard against all unconstitutional 
encroachments upon their chartered claims and rights. 
Nor is there any danger that the establishment of this 
principle should exalt the judicial above the legislative 
power ; for they are co-ordinate branches of govern- 
ment, and equally bound by the Constitution ; and 
if the judges should substitute caprice and arbitrary 
will for the exercise of sober discretion and rational 
judgment, they are not left, like the legislature, to the 
ineffectual control of public opinion ; but are liable, by 
an express provision of the Constitution, to be impeach- 
ed for misconduct, and tried by the legislature ; and, if 
convicted, removed from office. , 

The United States, and the separate States generally, 
acknowledge this power to reside in the judiciary ; but, 
on the 29th of November, 1815, the Georgia House of 
Representatives passed a resolution censuring their 
State judges for deciding the alleviating law; that is, a 
statute, passed by the Georgia legislature, prohibiting 
the use of any legal means for the recovery of debts, to 
be unconstitutional ; and also denying to the judiciary 
the right of giving any opinion upon the constitution- 
ality of legislative acts. This resolution is sufficiently 
flagrant and illegal ; because it denies to a separate 
and co-ordinate branch of government a constitutional 
right, which has been acquiesced in, and acted upon^ 
by the United States, by the other separate States, 
and by Georgia herself, heretofore; a right which, 
from the very nature of our republican institutions, ap- 
pertains to the judiciary. But this outrageous resolu- 
tion scarcely equals the usurping conduct of the 
Georgia Senate, upon whose table, in November, 1815, 
was lying a bill to compel the judges to exhibit to the 
legislature all the Rules of their Courts; and to take 



1 8g RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

away from the bar and judiciary the right of estabhshing 
any rules for their own government, unless they have 
first received the legislative sanction. 

This is, at one stroke, cutting up by the roots the 
constitutional independence of the judiciary, and ren- 
dering the judges mere passive instruments of an arbi- 
trary and overbearing legislature ; which is, in fact, 
establishing the most dangerous, because the most un- 
responsible of all tyrannies. A single despot may be 
resisted, called to account, and punished; out a multi- 
tudinous despotism, composed of a numerous body of 
popular representatives, elected only for a short season, 
may, at any time, crush the liberties, and trample on 
all the political rights of the community, without con- 
trol, and without punishment. Several of the leading 
members of the Georgia legislature pledged themselves 
never to cease their exertions until the omnipotence of 
the legislature was acknowledged ; and they also con- 
tended that the Constitution, whether State or Federal, 
is not law, but merely the will of the people ; which can 
only be known by the voice, resolution, and vote of its 
constitutional organ — the legislative assembly — which 
is, therefore, paramount in power and authority to 
every other department of government. 

The judiciary of Georgia are sufficiently dependent 
by the tenure of their office, without any legislative 
encroachments upon their rights and privileges ; for 
they are elected only for three years, and are remov- 
able by the Governor, on the address of two-thirds of 
both houses. Now, judges, w^ho know that their re- 
election to office liinges upon the will and pleasure of 
their electors, at so short a distance, cannot feel them- 
selves independent, and at liberty to act without regard 
to the opinions of those who may, or not, at their own 
discretion, reappoint them to office ; and the judges 
are equally at the mercy of the legislature, when two- 
thirds of the members can, by their mere address to the 
executive, remove them from office. It is vain, under 
such circumstances, to expect an impartial administra- 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



189 



tion of justice. It is to be hoped that this encroach- 
ment upon the constitutional rights of the judiciary will 
not be imitated by any other State in the Union. 

The question, as to the power of trying the validity 
of statutes, by the provisions of the Constitution, and 
of treaties with foreign powers, being lodged in the 
hands of the judiciary, could not well arise prior to the 
revolution ; because the American colonies were partly 
governed by British statutes, the constitutionality of 
which the English judges themselves were not suffered 
to examine ; and consequently, a fortiori^ no such au- 
thority would have been tolerated in the American ju- 
diciary. Nor were the colonial legislatures likely to 
permit their judges to determine the validity of statutes 
enacted by them. After the revolution, this power, al- 
though not given in express words to the judiciary, was 
claimed as necessarily arising out of the existence of a 
written Constitution, the exposition of which, like that 
of any other law, can be safely entrusted only to the 
courts of justice. It would be destructive of all popu- 
lar hberty, to permit the executive, both to explain and 
execute the law ; nor would it be less perilous to allow 
the legislature to expound, as well as make laws. 

The federal judiciary decide upon the validity of acts 
of Congress, State Constitutions, and State statutes, 
by the provisions of the Constitution, and foreign 
treaties ; but have no power to determine the validity 
of State statutes, by the provisions of State Constitu- 
tions ; that power belonging exclusively to the State ju- 
diciary ; who likewise possess the right of trying the 
validity of State statutes, and State Constitutions, and 
acts of Congress, by the provisions of foreign treaties, 
and of the federal Constitution. It is fair to infer, that 
now^ the French and Dutch judiciary have power to try 
the legality of the acts of their respective legislatures, 
because France and the United Netherlands have each 
a written Constitution ; whereas in England, the judges 
have no such power, precisely because in that country 
there is no written Constitution, by the letter and spirit 



190 



KESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



of whose provisions, the validity of acts of Parliament 
maj be examined and detei mined. 

It is important, that such a power should be lodged 
in the judiciary of every country; because, although the 
cammon law possesses the peculiar faculty of adapting 
itself to the growth of the community, and of amending 
itself, in consequence of erroneous decisions being over- 
ruled by subsequent judges, or by the same judges, 
when better advised; yet, a statuk^ if unrepealed, and 
if the statute book be never revised, makes an integral 
and permanent part of the municipal law ; and the ex- 
perience of all nistory shows, that statutes are some- 
times passed amidst the heat and fury, the fire and smoke 
of party violence and wrong; whence, the necessity of 
that two-fold ^uard, which so happily exists in our 
State of New-York; namely, the power of the judi- 
ciary to try the legality of each statute, by the provi- 
sions of the Constitution ; and the occasional revision 
of the statute book, in order to expunge those legisla- 
tive acts, which the progress of time, (the greatest of 
all innovators, as Lord Bacon calls him,) the change of 
circumstances, and the growth of the community, might 
have rendered either obsolete, or impracticable, or per- 
nicious. 

The federal Constitution provides, that full faith and 
credit shall be given in each State, to the public acts, 
records, and judicial proceedings of every other State ; 
and Congress may, by penal laws, prescribe the man- 
ner in which such acts, records, and proceedings shall 
be proved, and the effect thereof This provision of the 
Constitution has been seconded by an act of Congress, 
declaring that the records, and judicial proceedings of 
each State, shall have such faith and credit given to them 
in every court within the United States, as they have by 
law, or usage in the courts of the State whence these 
records arc taken. 

This provision of the federal Constitution, probably 
was intended, gradually to reduce to one wholesome 
level of agreement, the laws; and judicial decisions of 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITJID STATES j 0| 

the several States of the Union ; in Hke manner as the 
law decisions of the different courts in England have 
been brought to agree, in all great legal and equitable 
principles, by the long-continued, and well-directed ef- 
forts of able, enlightened, and upright judges. " La 
diversite des loix civiles (say the distinguished jurists, 
who compiled the Napoleon Code,) est, comme la di- 
versity de religion, ou de langage, une barriere, qui rend 
etrangers, I'un a I'autre, les peuples les plus voisins, et 
qui les empeche de multiplier entr'eux des transac- 
tions de tout genre, et de concourir ainsi mutuellement 
a I'accroissement de leur prosperite." Indeed, nothing 
tends so directly to establish the whole community in 
social order, prosperity, and strength, as the prevalence 
of harmony and uniformity, in the judicial decisions of 
the different courts of justice throughout the country. 
Such a uniformity in the decisions of our courts, both 
State and federal, would prove the surest and firmest 
cement of a durable political union, in the American 
confederacy. 

The law decisions of the different English courts 
used to clash with each other, until the publication of 
the various modern reporters gradually brought the legal 
judgments of the King's Bench, Common Pleas, and 
Exchequer, to a salutary uniformity; which greatly 
augments the peace and security both of person and 
property; and consequently, greatly increases the na- 
tional prosperity and strength of the whole British peo- 
ple. Those persons who have diligently studied the 
law of England, as the foundation of American law, 
throughout all the States, know that for more than a 
century past, indeed ever since the complete establish- 
ment of the revolution, towards the close of the seven- 
teenth century, a constant, deliberate, and upright ad- 
ministration of justice, founded upon the most rational 
principles, has prevailed in the different courts of the 
British empire. 

If this provision of the Constitution was intended to 
promote a uniformity of laws and judicial decisions 
throughout the United States, it has not succeeded ; for 



192 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

there are actually no less than three different legal doc* 
trines afloat in the different States, upon this single con- 
stitutional clause; in some States a m/cr judgment, that 
is, a Judgment rendered in one of the sister States of the 
Union, IS held to be of no more validity than a foreign 
judgment, that is, a judgment rendered in any State, or 
country, unconnected with our American confederacy, 
for example, France or England ; in other States, a sis- 
ter judgment is held equal to a domestic judgment, that 
is, a judgment rendered in the State, taking cognizance 
of the sister judgment; in other States again, a sister 
judgment is considered as a kind of tertium qttidj as not 
quite so high as a domestic, nor quite so low as a foreign 
judgment. 

Indeed, the discrepancy between the laws of our dif- 
ferent States produces serious evil, by retarding and 
perverting the course of justice. For example, in some 
of the States an attachment law prevails, under which a 
person, absent from the State, may have a judgment 
rendered against him, that shall bind all his property 
all over the world, without any personal notice being 
given to him, or any opportunity afforded for him to de- 
fend the suit ; which is a mode of proceeding contrary 
to the first principles of justice. This attachment law 
is in full force throughout all the New-England and 
many of the southern and western States, while the 
middle States hold it in abhorrence, as contrary to the 
principles of the common law, and endeavour to defeat 
its efficacy in their own tribunals. The laws in the 
southern and western districts of the Union are gene- 
rally very lax, and favour the debtor at the expense of 
the creditor. Nor are they very scrupulous in enfor- 
cing contracts. During the last winter, a gentleman of 
the City of New-York, intending to remove into the 
State of Kentucky, bargained with a servant, to pay his 
expenses of travelling thither, and a certain rate of 
wages for one year, the servant, on his part, contract- 
ing to remain with and serve his master faithfully 
during that period. On their arrival in Kentucky, the 
sen'ant refused to live any longer with his master, be* 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. IQ^ 

cause he could do better for himself. The master ap- 
plies to the law for redress, and a Kentucky jury, 
(which is, in truth, the judge, both of law and fact,) 
dissolves the contract, on the ground that the sei'vant 
was not acquainted with the nature of the western 
country when he made the bargain. The master was 
without redress, and, in addition to losing all the mo- 
ney expended in conveying his servant a journey of 
nearly one thousand miles, he was saddled with the 
costs of the suit instituted for the purpose of obtaining 
justice. 

By parity of reasoning, a contract made in London or 
Paris ought not to be enforced in New-York, because 
the contracting party did not know the nature of New- 
York, when he made the contract. Such a loose and 
vitious administration of municipal law argues and in- 
creases a very lax state of public morals and of public 
feeling in regard to the eternal distinctions between 
right and wrong. 

A crime committed in one State is not punishable in 
another; for example, if a man steals a horse or kills his 
neighbour here, in the city of New-York, and crosses 
the ferry into the State of New-Jersey, he may escape 
punishment altogether, for the New-Jersey law takes 
no cognizance of a crime committed in the State of 
New- York, and the New- York law has no jurisdiction 
in the State of New-Jersey. Under such circumstances, 
the only chance of punishing the culprit lies in a pro- 
vision of the Federal Constitution, which gives the citi- 
zens of each State all the privileges and immunities of 
citizens in the several States ; and declares that a per- 
son charged in any State with treason, felony, or other 
crime, who flies from justice, and is found in another 
State, shall, on demand of the executive authority of 
the State whence he fled, be delivered up to be removed 
to the State having jurisdiction of the crime. 

But so little efficacy has this constitutional provision 
in preventing the commission of crime, that it is the 
common practice of our citizens to pass from one State 
into another for the purpose of fighting a duel ; which 

2B 



19^ RESOUKCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

done, the surviving parties return to the State which 
thej had expressly left in order to commit a breach of 
the laws, and deride all notion of punishment. In the 
lapse of little more than one year, the late General Ha- 
milton and his eldest son both crossed over the Hudson, 
to be killed on the New-Jersey shore, and their surviving 
antagonists have never been called to any legal account 
for destroying two of the brightest ornaments and 
surest bulwarks of the nation. " Thus Abner died as 
a fool dieth;" and the peerless Hamilton has added his 
name to swell the long and bloody muster-roll of those 
who have fallen victims at the shrine of the worst rem- 
nant of Gothic barbarity and feudal homicide. The 
Chrislian requires no arguments to be urged against the 
prevailing practice of fashionable murder; for the 
Christian knows that man has no right, either to seek 
his fellow's life, or to throw away his own, (except at 
his country's call) but that he is accountable alike for 
his own and his brother's blood to the God of the 
spirits of all flesh. 

But to that portion of the community, which is not 
sufficiently under the control of relioious feeling, this is a 
subject of deepest import. In the United States, in pro- 
portion to their population, more duels are annually 
fought than in any other nominally Christian country: and 
of these duels a greater number is fatal, owing to the su- 
perior practice and skill, and the more deliberate deadly 
coolness with which the Americans aim at each other's 
hfe. How many families are, at this moment, sorrowing, 
in hopeless misery, over the loss of a father, or a hus- 
band, or a brother, or a son, who either has been, or who 
might have become, not only the prop and support of 
his kindred house, but the defence and glory of his ad- 
mirinii: country ; who might have led her armies to vic- 
tory, or shaken her Senate with the thunders of his elo- 
quence, or have built her up into a high and palmy 
state of national honour and strength, by the wisdom of 
his counsel ! If the laws are ineffectual, and the guar- 
dians of those laws slumber on their post of duty, it is 
high time for the irwral force of the country to be put 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. . jQg 

ui requisition ; for tlie men of talents, character, pro- 
pertj, and influence in the community to unite tneir 
efforts, to stand in the gap between the dead and the 
living, to stay the plague, and bid the destroying angel 
depart from our reformed land for ever. 

It is all-important for the permanent security, repose, 
and prosperous condition of the United States, that the 
administration of justice, both civil and criminal, should 
be uniform and certain throughout the whole Union. 
Doubtless, the multiplication of our State Reporters will, 
in process of time, exercise a very salutary influence in 
producing this desirable uniformity in the law decisions 
of the different State courts. But a scrupulous con- 
formity to that clause of the Constitution, which de- 
clares, " that full faith and credit shall be given to the 
public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of each 
State in any other State," would more certainly and 
more speedily produce this great effect; since the 
habit of receiving the judicial proceedings of each 
State in every other State, as equally binding with 
those of its own, would soon induce the different State 
courts to assimilate their law opinions, principles, and 
decisions with each other, as the legitimate effect of 
such constant and friendly intercourse. Whereas, by 
treating the judg-ments of sister States merely as fo- 
reign judgments, they necessarily tend to recede as 
far from any amicable assimilation with them as with 
the decisions of foreifjn courts. But nothino: would 
so directly conduce to consolidate the strength, and 
prolong the duration of the American Union, as a 
uniformity in the legal provisions of the constirutions, 
statutes, and common law judgments of the several 
States composing that Union. Such a course of pro- 
ceeding would, in the lapse of time, enable America to 
exhibit a more complete di^^est of municipal jurispru- 
dence than the world has yet seen ; because she has an 
opportunity of borrowing from the two great systems of 
legal civilization, the civil and the common law, what- 
ever is best calculated to promote and protect the spirit 
of her own popular institutions, and to combine with 



196 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

what she thus borrows, the lights of her own various 
and progressive experience in the different departments 
of human society, poHtical, commercial, and scientific. 
This is the more important to strive after, because the 
science of leirislation is yet, of necessity, crude and im- 
perfect in this young and growing repubhc, owing to 
the want of long-continued political experience, and the 
extreme facility and latitude of empirical experiments 
upon the body politic, which the supreme sovereignty 
of so many separate independent republican States af- 
fords and encourages. 

And it is full time that the people of this country 
should learn the necessity of ballasting the speculative 
projects of the sanguine, the credulous, the precipitate 
political innovator with the cautious deliberation, the 
practical wisdom of the experienced, forecasting states- 
man, of the profound and enlightened judge. Then, 
indeed, might the whole Federal Union be melted 
down into one living body of national peace, security, 
permanent prosperity, and power, by the gradual diffu- 
sion of a uniform system of municipal law over all the 
different confederated State sovereignties. It would 
not then be easy, even for the hydra-headed monster 
faction herself, to disentangle the warp and the woof 
which might be interwoven, thread upon thread, 
throughout all the texture of society. 

The Federal Constitution provides, that no person 
held to labour or service in one State, under its laws, 
escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law 
or regulation of that other State, be discharged from 
such service or labour, but shall be delivered up on 
claim of the party to whom such service or labour may 
be due. This provision enables the master of a run- 
away slave to claim him, even in a State, the municipal 
law of which has abolished or prohibited slavery, be- 
cause tiie Constitution of the United States is the su- 
preme law of the land, to which all State laws must 
yield. Otherwise such fugitive slaves would be pro- 
tected, because in all penal or criminal matters, munici- 
pal law permits no interference on the part of local law, 



EESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. jg-y 

*nd the lex loci not operating, even in civil cases, as on 
personal contracts, whenever its operation would clash 
with or contradict the provisions of municipal law. 
Ohio, who has prohibited the existence of slavery by 
her Constitution, borders on all sides upon slave-holding 
States, from which runaway slaves often escape into 
her dominion, and her reluctance, not to say absolute 
refusal, to give up such fugitives to their owners, has 
recently occasioned considerable heat and animosity be- 
tween her and her neighbour Kentucky, who possesses a 
large body of slaves within her territory, and shows no 
inclination to diminish their number. 

The Constitution also provides, that new States may 
be admitted by Congress into the Union; but no new 
State formed within the jurisdiction of any other State; 
nor any State formed by the junction of two or more 
States, without the consent of the legislatures of the 
States concerned, as well as of Congress. Congress has 
power to dispose of, and make all needful rules and regu- 
lations respecting the territory, or other property belong- 
ing to the United States ; and nothing in the Constitu- 
tion shall be so construed as to prejudice any claims of 
the United States, or of any particular State. The 
United States shall guarantee to every State in the 
Union a republican form of government, and protect 
each of them against invasion; and on application of 
the legislature, or of the executive, when the legisla- 
ture cannot be convened, against domestic violence. 
Congress, whenever two-thirds of both Houses shall 
deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to the Con- 
stitution; or on the application of the legislatures of 
two-thirds of the several States, shall call a convention 
for proposing amendments ; which in either case shall 
be valid, as part of the Constitution, when ratified by 
the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States, 
or by conventions in three-fourths of the States as one, 
or other mode of ratification may be proposed by Con- 
gress ; provided, that no amendment made prior to the 
year 1808, shall affect the piovisions respecting the mi- 
gration, or importation of persons into, or from the se- 



298 RESOTOCES Of THE UMTED STATES. 

Veral States, and the imposition of capitation, or other 
direct taxes ; and provided, that no otate, without itw 
consent, sliali be deprived of its equal suflrage in the 
Senate. 

All debts contracted, and engaj^ements entered into 
before the adoption of the Constitution, shall be valid 
against the United States, under the Constitution, as 
under the confederation. The Constitution, and the 
laws of the United States, made in pursuance thereof, 
and all treaties made under the authority of the United 
States, shall be the supreme law of the land, and the 
judges in every State bound thereby, any thing in the 
Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary not- 
withstanding. The Senators and Representatives in 
Congress, and the members of the several State legis- 
latures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of 
the United and the several States, shall be bound by 
oath, or affirmation, to support the Constitution ; but 7io 
relifrious test shall ever be required as a qualification to 
any otHce, or public trust under the United States. 

The amendments already made to the Constitution 
are, that Congress shall make no law respecting an 
establishment of rdiaion ; or prohibiting the free exer- 
cise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of 
the press, or the right of the people peaceably to as- 
semble and petition government for a redress of griev- 
ances. A well regulated militia being necessary to the 
security of a free State, the right of the people to keep 
and bear arms, shall not be iniringed. No soldier shall 
in time of peace be quartered in any house without the 
consent of the owner; nor in time of war, but in a man- 
ner to be prescribed by law. The right of the people 
to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, 
against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be 
violated ; and no warrants shall i?sue, but upon proba- 
ble cause, supported by oath, or affirmation, and parti- 
cularly describing the place to be searched, and the per- 
sons or things to be seized. No one shall be held to 
answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless 
on a presentment, or indictment of a grand jury; ex- 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 299 

cept in cases arising in the land, or naval forces, or mi- 
litia, when in actual service, in time of war or public 
danger; nor shall any one be subject for the same of- 
fence, to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor 
shall be compelled in any criminal case, to be witness 
against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or pro- 
perty, without due process of law ; nor shall private 
property be taken for public use, without just compen- 
sation. 

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall have a 
right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury 
of the State and disrict wherein the crime was com- 
mitted ; (which district shall have been previously as- 
certained by law ;) and be informed of the nature and 
cause of the accusation, be confronted with the witnesses 
against him, have compulsory process for obtaining wit- 
nesses in his favour, and have the assistance of counsel 
for his defence. In suits at common law, where the 
value in Controversy exceeds twenty dollars, the right 
of trial by jury shall be preserved; and no fact tried by 
jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any court of the 
United States, than according to the rules of the com- 
mon law. Excessive bail shall not be required, nor ex- 
cessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishment 
inflicted. The enumeration in the Constitution of cer- 
tain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage 
others retained by the people. The powers not delega- 
ted to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohi- 
bited by it to the States, are reserved to the States re- 
spectively, or to the people. The judicial power of the 
United States shall not be construed to extend to any 
suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against 
one of the United States, by citizens of another State, 
or by citizens or subjects of any foreign State. The 
electors shall name in their ballots the person voted for 
as President, and in distinct ballots, the person voted for 
as Vice President; but no person, constitutionally Ineli- 
gible to the office of President, shall be eligible to that 
of Vice President of the United States. 



200 



RESOURCES OF THE ITNITED STATES. 



It is a very important provision, which prescribes the 
mode of proposing and carrying into effect future 
amendments to the Constitution, without hazarding a dis- 
solution of the confederacy, or suspending the opera- 
tion of the existing government. Accordingly, twelve 
additional Articles were appended, as amendments to 
the Constitution, within a (ew years after it first went 
into operation; and, in the year 1804, the amendment 
respecting the election of President and Vice President 
was added. The amendment may be effected cither on 
a recommendation from Congress, whenever two-thirds 
of both houses concur in the expediency of such a mea- 
sure ; or, by a mode which secures to the separate 
States an influence, in case Congress should neglect to 
recommend such amendments. Both these modes ap- 
pear to be good ; of the efficacy of the first the nation 
has had full experience, in the amendments already 
made. The second seems a fit mode, whenever the 
general government shall betray such symptoms of cor- 
ruption as to render it expedient for the several States 
to exert themselves, in order to apply some radical and 
effectual remedy. 

It is not easy to bestow too much praise upon this 
Article of the Constitution, which thus provides a safe 
and peaceable remedy for its own defects, as they may, 
from time to time, be discovered. A change of govern- 
ment, in other countries, is generally attended with con- 
vulsions that menace its entire dissolution, and portend 
scenes of horror and bloodshed that deter mankind from 
attempting to correct abuses, or remove oppressions, 
until they have become altogether intolerable — when a 
national explosion ensues that buries all the orders of 
the State beneath its ruins. Nor need it be apprehend- 
ed that this salutary provision in the Federal Constitu- 
tion will, of itself, produce instability in the general 
government. For tne mode, both of originating and 
ratifying amendments, directed by the Constitution, must 
necessarily be attended with such obstacles and delays, 
as must prove a sufficient bar against light or frequent 
innovations. 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 20t 

Several amendments have been proposed by the 
States of Virginia, New-York, North CaroHna, Massa- 
chusetts, New-Hampshire, Rhode-Island, and South 
Carolina, at different times, in convention ; they are all 
collected in the 3d, 4th, 7th, and 8th volumes of the 
American Museum. Some of them appear to have 
been offered only ex ahundanti cautela^ as security against 
misconstruction, or an undue extension of the powers 
vested in the federal government ; while others seem to 
have been calculated to remedy some radical defects in 
the national system. Two other unsuccessful efforts to 
amend the Constitution have been made since the pub- 
lication of the American Museum ; namely, one on the 
12th of April, 1808, submitted by Mr. Hillhouse, a 
respectable Senator in Congress from the State of Con- 
necticut, to the Senate of the United States. His pro- 
positions were many, and the speech enforcing them 
ingenious and acute. The chief amendment proposed 
was, in fact, a virtual abolition of the executive, as a 
separate branch of the American government, by re- 
ducing the President's term of service from four years 
to one, by lowering his salary, by transferring from 
him to the Senate the power of appointing to, and re- 
moving from office ; and by annually choosing by ballot 
the executive from a given number of Senators. 

Mr. Hillhouse contended that many advantages would 
flow to the United States from this proposed alteration 
in the form and substance of their government. But, 
without minutely considering the various fallacies of this 
scheme, it is sufficient to observe, that the mere circum- 
stance of blendino- tojrether the executive and leo;isla- 
live departments, would entail innumerable evils upon 
America, and speedily erect an unmitigated despotism 
upon the ruins of the Republic. The practical, as well 
as theoretic division of powers in a government into the 
three distinct departments of executive, legislative, and 
judicial, being the corner-stone of social liberty, and an 
orderly, upright administration of the commonwealth. 
Mr. Hillhouse's plan of amendment was rejected in the 
Senate of the United States by a large majority. 

20 



202 RESOURCES OF lliE L.MTED STATEi;. 

On the 15th of Dccemher, 1814, a convention of de- 
legates from the States of Massachusetts, Connecticut, 
and Rhode-island, the counties of Cheshire and Grafton, 
in the State of New-Hampshire, and the county of 
Windham, in the State of Vermont, met at Hartford, in 
Connecticut, to propose amendments to the Consiitution. 
In order to accomplisli which, they pubhshed a general 
view of the measures that they deemed essential to 
secure the Union against the recurrence of those diffi- 
culties and dai]gers which they thought arose from the 
radical delisct of the Constitution itself, aided by an un- 
wise and impolitic administration of the general govern- 
ment. The amendments proposed were — First. That 
representatives and direct taxes should be apportioned 
among tiie several States included within the Union, 
according to their respective numbers o[ free persons, 
including those bound to serve for a term of years, and 
excluding Indians not taxed and all other persons. 
Secondly. No new State shall be admitted into the Union 
by Congress, without the concurrence of two-thirds of 
both houses. Thirdly. Congress shall not have power 
to lay any embargo on the ships or vessels of the citi- 
zens of the United States, in the ports and harbours 
thereof, for more than sixty days. Fourthly. Congress 
shall not have power, without the concurrence of two- 
thirds of both houses, to interdict the commercial inter- 
course between the United States and any foreign 
nation, or its dependencies. Fifthly. Congress shall not 
make or declare war, or authorize acts of hostility 
against any foreign nation, without the concurrence of 
two-thirds of both houses, except such acts of hostility 
be in defence of the territory of the United States when 
actually invaded. Sixthly. No person, who shall here- 
after be naturalized, shall be eligible as a member of 
the Senate or House of Representatives of the United 
States, nor capable of holding any civil office under the 
authority of the United States. Seventhly. The same 
person shall not be elected President of the United 
States a second time ; nor shall the President be elected 
two terms in succession from the same State. 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 203 

These resolutions were forwarded, by the Hartford 
Convention, to the legislatures of the several States in 
the Union, by a majority of which they were rejected; 
and, by those of New-York and Virginia, assailed with 
all the bitterness of reproach. 

The Federalist^ doubtless, is equal to any work, an- 
cient or modern, in political philosophy, judicial wisdom, 
and profound, perspicuous, comprehensive reasoning; 
but it plays the part of an advocate for the Constitution 
of the United States, whose excellences it blazons forth 
with matchless ability, but whose radical defects it cau- 
tiously conceals from public view. The proof of this 
lies in the fact, that General Hamilton, the principal 
writer in this work, has left, in his own handwriting, 
the draught of a Constitution far more efficient than that 
which he praises so elaborately and ably, under the sig- 
nature of Publius. The truth is, all the tendencies to 
weakness and disunion, in the frame and texture of the 
American governments were, from the beginning, ma- 
nifest to his sagacity and genius. He had long observ- 
ed that, in the revolutionary war, the independence of 
his country was perpetually endangered by the imbe- 
cility of its government ; and that, tor some years after 
the establishment of peace, in 1783, the loss of reputa- 
tion, and the sacrifice of its best interests, flowed from 
the same source. He laboured, therefore, to erect a 
government of sufficient force and energy to protect and 
guide its own people at home, and secure reverence and 
honour in the eyes of foreign nations. And, in the 
general convention of 1787, he pressed, Avith all the 
weight of his stupendous talents, the necessity of adopt- 
ing a more efficient form of government, as will fully 
appear, if ever his most able and eloquent speech on 
that occasion shall be published. He drew the follow- 
ing outline of a plan of government for the United 
States, as better calculated than tlie present Constitu- 
tion to combine national strength with popular liberty. 

First. The supreme legislative power of the United 
States of America to be vested in two different bodies 
of men; one to be called the Assembly, the other the 



201 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Senate: who, together, sliall form the legislature of the 
United States, Avith power to pass all laws whatsoever, 
subject to the negative hereafter mentioned. Secondly. 
The Assembly to consist of persons elected by the peo- 
ple to serve for three years. Thirdly. The Senate to 
consist of persons elected to serve during irood behaviour; 
their election to bo made by electors chosen for that 
purpose by the people ; the States to be divided into 
election districts. On the death, removal, or resigna- 
tion of any Senator, his place to be fdled out of the dis- 
trict whence he came. 

Fourthly. The supreme executive authority of the 
United States to be vested in a Governor, elected during 
good behaviour^ by electors chosen by the people in the 
election districts ; the Governor to have a negative upon 
all laws about to be passed, and the execution of all 
laws passed ; to have the direction of war, when au- 
thorized or begun ; to have, with the advice and con- 
sent of the Senate, the power of making all treaties; to 
have the sole appointment of the heads or chief officers 
of finance and loreign affairs ; to have the nomination 
of all other officers, including ambassadors to foreign 
nations, but subject to the approbation or rejection of 
the Senate ; to have the power of pardoning all offences, 
except treason, which lie shall not pardon without the 
approbation of the Senate. Fifthly. On the death, re- 
signation, or removal of the Governor, his authorities 
and functions to be exercised by the president of tlic 
Senate, until a successor be appointed. Sixthly. The 
Senate to have the sole power to declare war; the 
power to advise and approve all treaties ; to approve 
or reject all appointments of officers, except the heads 
or chiefs of the departments of finance, war, and foreign 
afialrs. 

Seventhly. The supreme judicial authority of the 
United States, to be vested in judges, to hold their office 
during good behaviour, with adequate and permanent sa- 
laries; the court to have on^?«a/ jurisdiction in all cases 
of capture ; and an appellate jurisdiction in all causes, in 
which the rcAcriucs of the general government, or the 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES^ 205 

citizens of foreign nations are concerned. Eighthly. 
The legislature of the United States to have power to 
institute courts in each State for the determination of all 
matters of general concern. JYinthly. The Governor, 
Senators, and all officers of the United States, to be 
liable to impeachment for mal and corrupt conduct; 
and on conviction, to be removed from office, and dis- 
qualified from holding any place of trust or profit. All 
impeachments to be tried by a court, consisting of tlie 
Chief Justice, or Judge of the superior court of law, of 
each State; provided^ such judge hold his place during 
good behaviour, and have a permanent salary. Tenihly. 
All laws of the particular States, contrary to the Con- 
stitution, or laws of the United States, to be void ; and 
the better to prevent such laws from being passed, the 
Governor, or President of each State, shall be ap- 
pointed by the general government ; and shall have a 
negative upon the laws about to be passed in his State. 
Eleventhly. No State to have any force, land or naval ; 
and the militia to be under the sole and exclusive direc- 
tion of the United States ; who shall appoint and com- 
mission the militia officers. 

The chief points in which General Hamilton's scheme 
differs from the present federal Constitution are, the 
superior permanency of the Senate, the longer duration, 
and greater power of the executive, and the more ex- 
tensive control of the general government over the se- 
parate States. But although General Washington ap- 
proved of these provisions, as calculated to protect the 
country from disorder and anarchy within, and from im- 
potence and contempt abroad, yet he would not ven- 
ture to recommend so efficient a measure to the dele- 
gates assembled together in the national convention ; 
and quoted the well-known saying of Solon, who, on 
being asked if he had framed the best possible laws for 
the Athenians.'^ answered, "JVb, but the best laws, 
which the people of Athens, in their present temper 
and situation, will bear." 

The distinguishing features of all the American 
Constitutions, as they now stand, are, that they make 



OQ^J KE'iOL'RCES OF HIE LHSITED STATE?. 

every office eUciivCj as contradlsiiiiiijuislied from the hf' 
reiiitari^ tenures prevailiiioj in inoiiairhial and aristo- 
cratic Torins of governnuMit: and also, that nhile tiiey 
provide amply Tor the protection of personal libert>, and 
the property of individuals. Avhich is, indeed, the only 
sure foundation of all o;ood fjovernnient, they do not 
suthciently attend to promotina; the two otiier great re- 
quisites of good government ; namely, putting a strong 
and permanent disposeable force into the hands of the 
executive ; and developing the national mind on a great 
scale, by instituting and encourao;ing large and libei-al 
systems of general instruction, ^n most other coun- 
tries, the government is all, and the people nothing ; in 
the United States, tlie people are all, and the govern- 
ment nothing. The same general principle applies to 
a\\ jjapcr constitutions, which applies to all statute law; 
namely, that so perpetual is the iluctuation of human 
affairs, so various the moditications of which property 
is susceptible, so boundless the diversity of relations, 
which may arise in civil life, so infmite the possible com- 
binations of events and circumstances, that thev elude 
the power of enumeration, and mock all the etVorts of 
human foresight. Whence, it is the duty of every wise 
and good government to abstain from too great a rage 
for multiplying statutes, and from too much minuteness 
in specifying the particular powers of the municipal de- 
partments. It is best, under the responsibility of im- 
peachment for mal-conducf, to leave to the powers of 
government, more especially the executive^ a sutlicientlj 
undefined latitude of authority, to enable them to adapt 
the necessary national measures to those exigencies 
which are continually arising; but which no paper con- 
stitution can possibly provide for, or foresee. 

Havinof orone throuixh a summary of the provisions of 
the United States Constitution, it is proposed now, to 
olTer some general observations on the radical, the in- 
trinsic weakness of the Federal government ; the neces- 
sity of gradually strengthening it, more especially in its 
executive branch ; and, above all, the necessity of a 
vigorous admiuislralion of the general government upon 



RESOimCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 207 

federal principles, that is to say, the principles on which 
the Constitution itself was founded and constructed. 
This was done by General Washington, throughout the 
whole course of his administration ; and Mr. Adams 
appeared to begin his presidential career in the same 
track; but, towards its close, his policy assumed an as- 
pect peculiarly strange and wayward, visionary and 
fantastic, turbulent and unsettled. Mr. Jefferson and 
Mr. Madison avowedly administered the general govern- 
ment altogether upon the democratic scheme, and set 
themselves stoutly to the task of undoing all that Wash- 
ington had done ; namely, disbanding the regular army, 
destroying the national navy, anniliilating the internal 
revenue, ruining the commerce of the country, breaking 
up the Bank of the United States, and many other phi- 
losophical improvements in the art of misgoveming the 
commonwealth. Those who profess to be the intimate 
friends of Mr. Monroe, and to be acquainted with his 
sentiments, are labouring strenuously to cause the Ame- 
rican people to believe that our new President intends 
to follow the good old Federal plan of General Wash- 
ington, and watch over the finances, encourage the 
couimerce, nourish the navy, protect the army, cherish 
the liberty, prosperity, strength, and happiness of the 
nation at home, and secure its respect and influence 
abroad ; that the miserable party distinctions of Federalist 
and Democrat are to be for ever abolished, and a po- 
litical millennium to be established throughout the Union. 
It is the more to be lamented, that the Federal go- 
yemment should have been ever administered on demo- 
cratic principles, because it is, in its essential conform- 
ation, too weak at once to balance the weight of the 
separate State sovereignties, to maintain its own steady 
dominion over all the portions of its immense Union, 
and to build up the nation at large, by certain steps, 
into a paramount power, influencing and controlling the 
greater potentates of the elder quarters of the globe. 
The great statesmen (led by Washington himself^ and 
illumined by the transcendent genius of Hamilton) who 
framed the Federal Constitution, earnestly deprecated 



208 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



tlie notion of its being considered or conducted as a de- 
iiiocracy. And many very elaborate and able argu- 
ments, founded on a careful induction from facts record- , 
ed in history, and resting on tiie basis of the most ap- 
proved principles of political philosophy, were adduced 
to prove that the general government of the United 
States is not a democracy, but that care had been taken 
by the General Convention^ which met at Philadelphia, 
in tlie year 1787, to infuse, as much as existing circum- 
stances would allow, of the wisdom and energy of aris- 
tocracy, to temper and restrain the turbulence, the 
fluctuation, and the weakness of unbalanced democracy, 
which they emphatically declared to be the greatest 
misfortune that could be inflicted on any country. 

These illustrious sages and practical politicians knew 
full well, that an uncontrolled democracy iiad destroyed 
Athens, and Carthage, and Rome, and the Italian re- 
publics of the middle ages, and the United Provinces of 
Holland. To which melancholy muster-roll of perdi- 
tion may now be added the dominion of revolutionary 
France. They, therefore, feared that the prevalence 
of an unchecked democracy throughout the United States 
would consign to destruction the liberties, the wealth, 
the honour, the character, the happiness, the religion, 
the moials, the whole august fabric of public prosperity 
and private worth, Avhich have, at some auspicious pe- 
riods of their history, so peculiarly distinguished the 
national career of the confederated States of America. 

It is the bounden duty of the people of every free 
country, to watch over and preserve their own liberties, 
by keeping the declarations and measures of their rulers 
within the bounds of delegated dominion, prescribed by 
the letter and the spirit of the national Constitution. 
And it is equally the duty of the government of every 
free country to guard against all encroachments upon 
the liberties of the people ; to encourage the equal and 
impartial administration of justice : to promote the best 
interests of learning; to foster the arts and sciences ; to 
quicken the activity of agriculture, manufactures, and 
commerce, and every species of productive industry and 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 209 

skill; to reverence and aid the progress of pure religion 
and sound morals, in all the various denominations of 
religious belief, and throughout all the classes of the 
community; in a word, to labour unremittingly to ren- 
der the people prosperous and happy at home, respect- 
ed, feared, and courted abroad. 

In order to accomplish these great purposes, it is 
one, among many, of the indispensable duties of the 
government to exclude all foreigners from any political 
interference or influence in the affairs of the nation. 
They should be protected equally with the natives in 
all the pursuits of private industry and enterprise, but 
should never be permitted to lay their unhallowed liands 
upon the ark of the national government ; to invade the 
recesses of the executive cabinet ; to violate the sanctity 
of the temple of legislation, or to pollute the ermine of 
justice in the tribunals of the country. All men, unless 
they are unsound at the heart's core, cling with fond 
attachment to the land that gave them birth, to its hills, 
and dales, and woods ; to its people, government, and 
laws; to all the associations, physical and moral, that 
exercise the strongest dominion over the human mind. 
All such associations, prejudices, and predilections every 
honest foreigner necessarily carries with him into ./^me- 
rican oflice ; into the service of a country, whose social 
institutions, taken altogether, have no parallel in the 
history of the world. If a foreigner does not love his 
own native country, does not desire her well-being and 
prosperity, what kind of heart has he ? Can a traitor 
at home be faithful abroad ? Can one, who aims the 
assassin's knife at the vitals of his own parent country, 
be fitted to uphold the great national interests of a 
stranger land ? Are unnatural hatred, dastardly re- 
venge, and cannibal malignity to be mistaken for lofty 
patriotism, comprehensive wisdom, and unblenched in- 
tegrity ? 

It is indeed mere madness and political suicide, in any 
and in every country to suffer foreigners to have a poli- 
tical vote ; to permit them to elect or be elected to any 
office in the State, from that of tlie chief executive of 

27 



210 IlESOtRCES 01- THL UMTED STATES. 

the wliolc nation down to the lowest ministerial ofTicer 
in the obscurest hamlet of an obscure district. It is 
quite enough that a foreigner be protected in his person, 
his property, his reputation, his individual efforts in his 
calling, by the equal administration of justice dealt out 
to hiin in common with all the other inhabitants of the 
community. But every country ought to be exclusively 
governed by its own native talent and property. In 
every nation that arrogates to itself the proud preroga- 
tive of being an independent substantive power, its own 
native warriors should lead their armies ; its own native, 
heroes should bear their naval tliundcrs over every sea; 
its own native statesmen should guide the councils, re- 
gulate the finances, administer the government of their 
country; its own native judges should dispense the 
streams of law, justice, and equity throughout all the 
land ; that the people, growing up under the shelter of 
the talent, property, and character of their natural guar- 
dians, may, through a long series of years, advance in 
prosperity, Intelligence, wealth, and power, until they 
become the bulwark and ornament of a surrounding 
world. Let America, in the day of her exaltation, re- 
member the advice of Rome's best poet : 

•' Tu regcrc impcrio populos, Romane, memento ; 
IfjE tibi erunt artes ; paciscjue imponere Morem, 
Parcere subjectis, et debellure superbos." 

General Washington administered the government of 
the United States with a practical efficiency and wis- 
dom, peculiarly calculated to render the country pros- 
perous at home, and respected abroad. Owing to va- 
rious untoward causes, the chief of which, however, was 
the entire inefficacy of the old Confederation of the 
States, tliis country was in the most deplorable condi- 
tion when President Washington first took upon him- 
self the administration of the Federal government, in 
the year 1789. The whole nation stood upon the verge 
of dissolution ; all the national movements at home 
were full of disorder and confusion, and abroad full of 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



211 



weakness and folly ; the finances were dilapidated ; the 
commerce annihilated ; the manufactures sinking ; the 
agriculture depressed ; an internal faction availed itself 
of and increased every domestic tumult and distress, in 
order to lay prostrate all the wholesome restraints of 
legitimate government and effective laws; the great body 
of the people themselves were rushing headlong into 
revolt and insurrection against all the lawful authorities, 
both State and Continental. 

Are not the knowledge and remembrance of all these 
evils so many additional incitements to cling to and pro- 
tect the Federal Union? — that mighty remedy which 
was found for the healing of all these national disorders 
— that Federal Union which gave form and pressure, a 
body and a soul, life, health, and spirit, strength, beauty, 
and power, to the disjointed, perishing members of these 
United States — that Federal Union which, if preserved, 
cherished, and progressively stretigthened^ cannot fail to 
build up the whole extent of this vast continent into im- 
perial magnificence, wealth, and power ; — protecting, 
exalting all its own citizens and subjects; and com- 
manding the respect of all other nations ; — that Federal 
Union which, if once dissolved, ensures the breaking up 
of the foundations of civil order, peace, and safety, over 
all the range of this extensive territory ; ensures a per- 
petuity of the anarchy, civil war, carnage, and desola- 
tion that in the elder ages of the world deformed the 
fair face of the Grecian commonwealths; and which, in 
a more recent period, fastened upon all tlie Germanic 
Empire, and on nearly the whole circumference of Con- 
tinental Europe, an entire century of uninterrupted hos- 
tilities, with all their train of attendant horrors and una- 
voidable anguish. 

From the innumerable evils of its condition, this 
country was at that time preserved by the Federal Con- 
stitution, administered by the integrity and discretion of 
Washington ; borne onward, and guided by the para- 
mount dominion of the genius of Hamilton. 

These great practical statesmen combined the personal 
liberty and security of the individual citizen with an 



212 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES 

effective administration of the national government; 
with an apt disposition of the public force ; Avith the 
levying, discipline, and obedience of a regular army ; 
the creation and support of an heroic navy ; the collec- 
tion of a productive and well-distributed internal reve- 
nue ; the protection and encouragement of religious or- 
dinances and moral duties; the multiplication of the 
means of acquiring, preserving, and enjoying property; 
the general diffusion of peace and order, of civil and 
social habits, manners, and proprieties, throughout the 
United States. 

These heroes and sages saw that no man has any 
legitimate qualification for office, except the possession 
ol integrity, talents, and knowledge, both speculative 
and practical ; that wherever these qualifications are 
found, in whatever age, or calling, or condition of life, 
they ought to be the unquestionable passports to all the 
offices of public honour, trust, and profit ; — that every 
nation must be perilously situated, which, either through 
ignorance, or through the madness of party rage, shuts 
the gates of public service against its citizens who arc 
most illustrious in wisdom, venerable in virtue, and re- 
spectable in wealth ; which condemns for ever to the 
shades of retirement and privacy, that weight and 
energy of character, so peculiarly fitted to establish, 
and diffuse over all the earth, their country's strength 
and glory; which industriously places the helm of go- 
vernment in the hands of men of low education, of illi- 
beral habits, of narrow views, of sordid occupations, of 
visionary brains, of cold, unfeeling, selfish hearts and 
dispositions. 

These lights and beacons of their age knew that by 
the fatal facility of changing the form and aspect, the 
body and substance of the national policy, as often, as 
much, and in as many ways as might seem expedient to 
the floating fancies of moon-struck, miserable politicians, 
the whole chain and continuity of the State must be for 
ever broken ; — all the golden links of civilized existence, 
which bind together the succeeding generations of the 
human race, must be torn asunder for ever, and the 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 2 1 3 

ages of men be no more than the swarms of flies on a 
summer's day ; — no more than the fleeting family of 
leaves that is scattered along the sky by the violence of 
the autumnal blast. 

These great architects of their country's honour 
showed, by the whole series of their public conduct, 
how vastly preferable is that practical administration of 
government which builds up to that theoretic policy 
which destroys a country; that which adorns to that 
which deforms a nation; that which enriches to that 
which impoverishes a people ; that which whitens every 
sea with the commercial canvass to that which drains 
the streams, and dries up the sources of trade ; that 
which sends forth a navy, full freighted with Columbia's 
glory, to that which dismantles all the ships of war, and 
consigns their keels to the dry docks of destruction ; 
that which establishes a permanent system of finance, 
by a well-arranged internal taxation, to that which rests 
all the revenue of a nation upon the precarious basis of 
duties on foreign commerce. 

" Fortunati Amho* si quid mea pagina possi't, 
Nulla dies unquatn memori vos eximet sevo." 

And let it be remembered, as an additional incitement 
for all honest men to rampire the Union round about 
with their bodies, as with a living wall, and guard it 
from danger, that calamitous as was the state of things 
in this country, under the crazy auspices of the old con- 
federation, the condition of the American people would 
be infinitely more calamitous, if the federal Union were 
now to be dissevered ; and this vast continent, with its 
recently added dominion in the west, were to be split 
up, and shattered into numerous unconnected puny sove- 
reignties, which could not fail to become the foul and 
fruitful sources of innumerable intestine broils. Better, 
far better would it be for these United States to endure 
an entire century oi foreign war ; or to labour fifty year« 

* Washington and Hamilton. 



OJ4 RESOURCES OF THE irviTED STATES. 

under the burden of domestic maladministration^ than 
hy severing the federal Union into a niiiitilude of petty 
principahlies, to entail upon all the extent of the north- 
ern continent of America, the prevalence of foreign 
factions, French, Russian, and British, perpetually inter- 
fering with, and confounding all their home movements 
and measures; and above all, to ensure a perpetuity of 
feudal anarchy and brigandage; of castellated feuds; 
of partisan warfare; of hereditary hostility; of arbitrary 
incarceration; of inquisitorial torment; of military exe- 
cution; of private assassination; of pubhc pillage ; of 
universal oppression, and all the calamities incident to 
afflicted humanity, when ybrcc and fraud are the arbiters 
of right and wrong. 

It is a fact which should never be forgotten, that the 
United States, during the period of eight years, under 
the guidance of Washington'' s administration, were raised 
from the lowest point of national depression, penury, 
and disgrace, to an exalted eminence of national eleva- 
tion, riches, and honour. 'The public credit, which had 
been annihilated, was revived ; private confidence, which 
had been extinguished, was renewed; commerce, which 
had long languished in indolence and despair, spread its 
active enterprise over the whole globe; the national 
debt, which had been considered as for ever sponged, 
and the public creditors, in consequence, defrauded, was 
funded, and in the full course of hquidation ; a well-ad- 
justed, and a growing internal revenue was collected, 
without pressing upon, and impeding the progress of, 
productive labour; industry, sobriety, good order, mo- 
ral decency, and wealth, were substituted in the room 
of idleness, intemperance, tumult, profligacy, and po- 
verty ; peace was established, and maintained effectually 
and sincerely, with all the world ; native talents and vir- 
tue were sought for, brought forward, and raised into 
high official authority and trust; the national honour 
and influence were sustained at home by a strict admi- 
nistration of justice, dealt out impartially to every indi- 
vidual in the community; and tlie national dignity was 



'RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES- 215 

Upheld abroad, by the capacity, wisdom, and courage of 
its diplomatic representatives in foreign courts. 

America presented to the eyes of all other nations, a 
spectacle unparalleled in the history of the human spe- 
cies ; an infant republic, the growth of yesterday, out- 
stripping countries white with the hoar of unnutpbered 
ages, in population, wealth, and power; in arts, and 
arms, in reputation, authority, and influence ; and the 
elder sovereigns of Europe, the great, rival, primary, 
contending powers, vied with each other in professions 
of esteem, in proffers of friendship, in the wooings of 
alliance, to the new-born dynasty of this western world. 

All these wonderful achievements of national good, 
were the results of only eight years of a wise and prac' 
tical administration of the federal government. 

It is the more necessary to lay the foundations of go- 
vernment broad and deep, since every iieiv government 
is of necessity weak, precisely because it is new. Ge- 
neral Hamilton was so well aware of this important 
truth, that he laid before the general conveniion, (as 
stated in the preceding pages) in the year 1787, a much 
stronger scheme of government than the federal consti- 
tution, which was ultimately adopted. But Washing- 
ton's prudence, or timidity, prevailed over the intrepid 
sagacity of Hamilton ; and the present federal Consti- 
tution was established. The rejection of Hamilton's 
plan, and the adoption of a feebler frame of national 
government, is the more to be regretted, because every 
new government, founded on principles of personal and 
social liberty, must be feeble ; and stand in need of a 
very firm and vigorous administration ; until time has 
rendered its authority venerable, and fortified its power 
by giving it an opportunity of growing up, and ming- 
ling^ with the feelings and habits of the people. 

This simple, but momentous truth, may be illustrated 
by reference to the history of Britain, and of the United 
States. For a long period after the revolution of 1688, 
which placed William of Orange on the British throne, 
so slender was the confidence of the people of England 
in the stabilltv and credit of their ofovernment. that the 



2 1 5 RESOURCES OF TllE UNITED STATES. 

Chancellor of the exchequer of that day, Montagu, the 
father of public credit in England, could not raise a very 
small sum, by way of loan, without taking the Lord 
Mayor of London by his side, as the guarantee for go- 
vernment ; and going, cap in hand, from house to house, 
and from shop to shop, requesting to borrow a hundred 
pounds, or even a less sum. And for the money, thus 
laboriously raised in small parcels, their best pubHc se- 
curities bore an interest of twelve per cent. ; and the 
paper of the bank of England was at a discount of 
twenty per cent. Whereas, for a period of twenty-five 
years, at the close of the 18th and beginning of the 19th 
century, the British government was enabled to raise 
loans amountinof in the a^Gfreo-ate to three thousand mil- 
lions of dollars, at an average of less than five per cent, 
interest ; and during almost all those years she main- 
ed a state of unexampled warfare with nearly the whole 
of continental Europe, arrayed under the banners of 
revolutionary France. 

The American government, about forty years after 
the establishment of the Federal Constitution, during the 
war with England, commenced in 1812, and closed in 
1815, could not raise so insignificant a sum as sixty mil- 
lions of dollars, by way of loan, although they gave in 
bonus and Interest, above twenty per cent, for what they 
borrowed. The paper of the southern banks was de- 
preciated atl east twenty-five per cent. ; and the bank?; 
generally, throughout the Union, excejUing those at 
Boston, stopped paying specie for their own notes. Be- 
fore tivo years of the war were expired, the administra- 
tion of die United States were literally bankrupted, both 
in men and money ; no one, in the whole community, 
would lend them a single dollar ; nor would a single in- 
dividual vohmtarily enrol himself in their armies, so that 
they had actually prepared statutes, for Congress to 
pass, enabling them to raise money by requisitions and 
forced loans, and to levy men by the French system ot 
conscription ; when the return of peace arrested these 
deathblows to all the popular Institutions and republi- 
can liberties of the United States of America. A me- 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 217 

morable practical comment this upon the inherent imbe- 
cility of the Federal Constitution ; and affording a na- 
tional tribute of honour to the prophetic sagacity of 
Hamilton. 

The power of a government must always depend 
upon the quantity of men and money which it has at its 
own disposal and command ; the mass or surplus capital 
floating in the community, and the confidence of the 
people in the wisdom, and their ready obedience to the 
directions, of their rulers ; and not on the extent of ter- 
ritory, or the huge size of an immense population. The 
empire of China is spread over a vast surface, and sup- 
posed to contain two hundred millions of people ; and yet 
so little disposable force, in men and money, has the 
Chinese government at command, that it exercises little 
or no influence over foreign nations ; less, indeed, than 
IS exercised by Holland, or Sweden, or Portugal, or any 
other of the smaller third and fourth-rate sovereigties 
of Europe. Now, influence over other potentates is the 
gauge of a nation's respectability and power; in like man- 
ner as the influence of an individual over the interests, 
passions, and prejudices of his fellow-citizens, is the 
measure of that individual's power. 

The general government of the United States has 
too little disposable force at command ; it has neither an 
army nor a navy sufficiently numerous and extensive; 
its public revenue is too scanty, and too precarious; and 
it never can depend upon the long-continued support of 
the popular favour for enabling it to prosecute any per- 
manent measures of enlarged and liberal policy. Being 
altogether a representative republic^ it is obliged to exist 
too much by exciting and following the passions and 
prejudices of the multitude ; to control and regulate 
which is the bounden duty of every wise and upright 
government, since the ignorance and violence of the 
multitude have an invariable tendency to defeat the 
execution of every intelligent and long-sighted national 
scheme. If the American government oppose the hasty 
clamours of a misguided populace, the officers of thai 
government will soon be converted, by dint of universal 

28 



2] 8 RESOURCES OF THE UMTED STATES. 

suffrage, into private citizens ; and the Union is of course 
condemned to a perpetual oscillation of political move- 
ments. 

It is 7iot in the ordinary course of human affairs for 
such a state of things to be permanent ; and it is to be 
apprehended, that the present general government of 
the United States will either assume a new forvu or 
(what is much more desirable,) will retain its namey 
but gradually become more stable and efficient, by fix- 
ing its rule upon the broad and firm foundations ol pro- 
perty and talent ; and, by progressively augmenting the 
power of the executive, enable it to mould the feelings, 
habits, and manners of the people to its own growth in 
strength and influence ; and thus render the national 
government secure at home and respectable abroad. 
Indeed, in all popular and free governments, it is safer 
and better silently and gradually to devolve upon the 
executive those powers which experience proves it ex- 
pedient to lodge tliere, than to confer upon it large and 
extensive authorities by written law; because that go- 
vernment is always best fitted to promote the prosperity 
and happiness of a nation, which has gradually grown 
up with and fashioned itself according to the feelings 
and interests of the people. 

The experience of the past, in the history of nations, 
is the only safe guide to our reasonings upon future 
events; and that experience seems to teach us, that in 
process of time, the United States will run the same ca- 
reer as other sovereignties have run; that in the course 
of necessity and experiment they will gradually disco- 
ver and adopt that system of government, (m practice 
as well as in theory,) which is best suited to the genius 
of their people, and best calculated to wield to advan- 
tage their great and growing resources. Their Consti- 
tution may, eventually, be shaped in accordance with 
tlie developement of all those great and shining quali- 
ties and faculties which go to the formation of daring 
and elevated characters ; and which call into existence 
the exertions of legislative wisdom, and the achieve- 
ments of heroic valour; — all emanating from a system 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 219 

that places and permanently fixes the helm of govern- 
ment in the hands of the men of talent and property, as 
the only safe and legitimate sources and guardians of 
all political power. 

The materials for making a great and powerful na- 
tion are all-abundant in the United States. They only 
wait the gradual growth of an energetic government, 
and its administration by sagacious and active statesmen. 
The vast extent of territory, the general salubrity ot 
the climate, the natural fertility of the soil, and variety 
of its productions ; the unparalleled capabilities of the 
country for commerce, owing to its long hne of sea- 
coast, its numerous harbours, and its internal navigation j 
the intelligence, spirit, intrepidity, and enterprise of the 
people generally, are all admirably adapted to establish 
a system of political order and regulation, which, by un- 
folding and directing to the pursuit of their {proper ob- 
jects the energies of the people, in all the various class- 
es of the community, shall render America a high and 
a mighty nation, protecting and rendering prosperous 
her citizens at home, and claiming and enforcing the 
respect and reverence due to her exalted moral and po- 
litical rank from the other powers of the world. 

The tendency of the general government to acquire 
strength at the expense of the State sovereignties, was 
evident during all its different administrations, until the 
course of policy that eventuated in the late war began 
to alarm and alienate the more commercial States. 
When first established, the general government was 
looked upon as a bond of union, for certain specified 
purposes, between so many sovereign independent 
States; but the sovereignty and independence of the 
separate States was, by degrees, almost lost sight of, 
and the government which had been collateral came to 
be viewed as the principal. Men of talents, from all 
parts of the Union, turned their eyes to the seat of the 
national government as the field of their ambition, until 
the measures of that government reminded the separate 
States of their individuality, and that there were rights 
and powers v^hich they had not surrendered. The 



220 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES 

consequence was, that the State governments immedi- 
ately rose in iaiportance, and the State legislatures, 
which had gradually sunk into objects of derision, re- 
ceived important accessions of strength in men of ta- 
lents, who withdrew from the national legislature, to 
rally round their native States. And it more than 
once happened, during the late war, that the govern- 
ment of a single State placed itself across the path of 
the general government, and arrested its movements in 
tliat quarter. 

The leading characteristics of the political and legal 
institutions of the United States at present, are — First. 
Tlie extreme elevation of the democracy or popular 
sovereignty of the country, and the corresponding de- 
pression of its talent and property in the scale of national 
mfluence. Secondly. The want of permanency in official 
station, arising from the elective nature of the executive 
and legislative, and, in some instances, of the judicial 
departments, and the rapid changes of the public ser- 
vants. Thirdly. The very general diffiision of elemen- 
tary intelligence, but the too scanty portion of very 
high or profound acquisitions throughout the communi- 
ty ; whence the American people, individually^ are more 
adroit, more skilful, more enterprising, than the corres- 
ponding classes of society in Europe, but the aggregate 
nation, as put in motion and directed by the govern- 
ment, is not so prompt and efficacious, because the too 
frequent mutations of office prevent the possibility of 
acquiring sufficient knowledge and power to enable the 
government to put in requisition and call forth into ac- 
tive and long-continued exertion all the resources of the 
commonwealth : whereas in Europe, although the mass 
of the people are, individually.! less intelligent and less 
enterprising than the corresponding population of the 
United States, yet, in consequence of the greater per- 
manency of office, the larger accumulation of family 
wealth, the more comprehensive education of the libe- 
rally instructed, and the stricter obedience and subor- 
dination of all ranks of society, the government is 
enabled to make a wider display and a more protracted 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



221 



exhibition of national power and strength, than it is pos- 
sible for the American government to accomplish under 
the same or similar circumstances. 

Nevertheless, it will be much easier for the Ame- 
rican government to become as powerful and efficacious 
as those of Europe, and for American statesmen to ac- 
quire as much learning and political information as 
those of Europe, than for the European population to 
become as intelligent and enterprismg as that of the 
United States ; and all the world knows, that a power- 
ful and active population is the great and effective en- 
ginery by which a statesman is enabled to aggrandize 
his country — is that lever of Archimedes, by which the 
universe itself is moved. 

It is peculiarly incumbent on the people of this con- 
tinually widening country to examine the political his- 
tory of the world, with a view to ascertain how far any 
nation, arjcient or modern, has approximated in its so- 
cial institutions towards the union of the three gi'eat 
requisites of a good government ; that is to say — First. 
The personal liberty of individuals. Secondly. A strong 
and permanent power always at the disposal of the ex- 
ecutive. Thirdly. An ample developement of the na- 
tional mind, by a system of large and liberal education. 

Such an inquiry belongs, emphatically, to the pro- 
vince of political philosophy., which is not sufficiently 
studied in these United States. In the most splendid 
era of the Athenian government the people were suf- 
fered to run riot into turbulence and anarchy, but they 
enjoyed no real liberty; the executive, an effective 
ephemeral magistrate, possessed no permanent, no ef- 
fectual power ; the national mind, indeed, was exhibited 
in most dazzhng magnificence, and has left imperishable 
monuments of strength, elegance, taste, and splendour, 
in poetry, the fine arts, eloquence, history, and philoso- 
phy, for the admiration and imitation of all future ages. 
Republican Rome, while she continued aristocratic, pre- 
served for several centuries a strong disposable power 
in the hands of her executive government, which mainly 
enabled her to achieve the conquest of the world ; but 



222 RESOURCES OF THE Lt^ITED STATES. 

she did not allow much individual liberty to the people, 
nor suflicienljy develope the national mind, except for 
the purposes of war and politics. General literature and 
science were neNxr pushed to any very great perfection 
under tiie Roman government, whether consular or im- 
perial. As soon as she widened into a democracy, the 
whole commonwealth was torn to pieces by the lury of 
contending factions, whose party violence speedily 
paved the way for the establishment of a military des- 

f)otism, that hushed into dread repose alike the voice of 
iberty and every effusion of exalted manly intellect. 

In these United States the personal liberty of indivi- 
duals is amply secured, both by the several constitu- 
tions and by the laws of the country, in its federal capa- 
city, and in its State sovereignties; but the power of 
the executive government is not sufficiently stable or 
strong, either in its federal head or in its State supre- 
macies; nor is the national mind sufficiently unfolded, 
either by liberal systems of public education, or by the 
discerning patronage of a munificent government. The 
British government is prevented from uniting in itself 
all the three requisites of excellence, by the remains of 
an hereditary feudal aristocracy, giving to a few over- 
grown families too much habitual influence and authori- 
ty, and retarding the full expansion of intellect and 
power in the middle and lower orders of the people. It 
wants, as Lord Chatham said, a greater infusion of life's 
blood from the vigour of those men to whom Providence 
has given the intrinsic qualities of genius and courage, 
but from whom he has withheld the factitious advan- 
tages of birth, rank, and fortune. 

Lord Ilardwicke undertakes to prove, that, although 
governments ought to be calculated with a view to the 
infirmities of those who govern, yet it is to be remem- 
bered, that resistance on the part of the governed should 
not be easy, and that no form of government can possi- 
bly be long continued, unless a high degree of confi- 
dence and power be reposed in it. Every form of go- 
vernrhent, whether monarchial, or aristocratic, or demo- 
cratic, is, indeed, liable to abuse, but ought not, there- 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



223 



fore,- to be exposed to ruin. Let the form of govern- 
ment be ever so unrestrained, let it be a complete demo- 
cracy, yet resistance to its operations ought to be diffi- 
cult. For, if not, men might be inflamed by slight faults, 
by personal affronts, by private sufferings, to disturb the 
peace of their country, and involve the whole commu- 
nity in all the horrors of confusion, violence, and blood. 
A man's fears always bear proportion to his hopes ; and 
one kind of passion, or weight of considerations, is ba- 
lanced by another. In times of social order, and an 
upright administration of government, the laws ought to 
be sufficiently strong to deter men, moved by ambition 
or resentment, by private and partial affections, from 
erecting the standard of resistance and revolt. Nor is 
it to be apprehended, that in 2ifree country, if the Con- 
stitution be affected, if tyrannical designs be openly 
avowed, and supported by injustice, good men will be 
deterred from eventually resisting. The laws, by in- 
spiring caution, however, will retard resistance, until it 
be fully ripened into action; so as to facilitate and se- 
cure its consequences; but in such a juncture of affairs, 
when men are roused by a love of liberty, order, and 
the common good, arguments addressed to private fears, 
will 7iot be able to weigh down the force of public af- 
fections. 

A government should never be founded upon the no- 
tion, that those who are entrusted with power, are of 
necessity more likely to abuse their authority than some 
of the particular persons, who owe it allegiance, are 
prone to endeavour to change or subvert that govern- 
ment. Such a notion is destructive of all systems of 
human law ; because it supposes an expediency of weak- 
ening those strong sanctions which have been employed 
in every civilized country, to give them their due force 
and operation. The checks upon government should 
be altogether of a^io/^c?' kind; they should consist in 
keeping the balance of the separate departments as 
even as possible ; by forming every estate in the Con- 
stitution, the executive, legislative, and judicial, a com- 
plete control upon each other. But it is the extreme of 



224 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



absurdity and danger to think of leaving the 'least 
strength or temptation to individuals, to resist or control 
the orovernment itself. 

Such a notion is also inconsistent with the nature of 
law, in two other points of view ; Jirst, as implying an 
error in theory ; namely, that a lawgiver, when framing 
a scheme of government, should pay as much attention 
to its possible dissolution as to its necessary support; and 
instead of securing obedience and perpetuity to it, by 
the strongest sanctions which wisdom can devise or 
justice will admit, ought to weaken those sanctions, in 
order to provide for cases which are out of his reach, 
and which must be left to themselves; because their 
very happening implies a dissolution of both law and 
government. Secondly. As such a notion implies an er- 
ror in fact ; namely, that a law for punishment, or a law 
for indemnity, can operate in times of civil disorder and 
revolution, as in times of peace and obedience ; either 
to create terror or aflford protection. It implies, that 
the legislature must provide for cases of extreme neces- 
sity and dissolution ; and thus, in effect, enlarge the right 
of private judgment respecting those cases, by takmg 
off the strongest checks to private resistance. The 
laws of a free country should be so poised, and balanced, 
that a justifiable and national resistance, such as that of 
England, at the revolution in 1688, and that of the 
United States in the revolution of 1776, should nol be 
attended with too much difficulty and terror. 

Indeed, generally speaking, when those who are en- 
trusted witn the executive power have abused the de- 
sign, or exceeded the limits of their tnist, a weakness in 
the hands of government follows, which disables it from 
exacting the legal forfeitures that were originally esta- 
blished for the security of its power. The experience 
of all history proves, that very little protection is deri- 
ved from the operation of law amidst the tumults of 
civil commotion ; leges inter arma silent. When "the trou- 
bles of Greece ceased by the surrender of Athens to 
the Lacedemonian arms, at the conclusion of the Pe- 
lopponnesian war. the thirty tyrants exercised cruelties 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 225 

against those who opposed their administration of go- 
vernment, unknown, not only to the municipal laws of 
Athens, but to those laws, which cemented the general 
union of the Grecian States. In Rome, the proscrip- 
tions of Sylla, and of the second triumvirate, Augustus, 
Anthony, and Lepidus, were contrary to the genius, the 
ancient policy, and all the legal institutions of the com- 
monwealth ; although well accommodated to the situa- 
tion and interests of those usurping demagogues, who 
had risen into absolute power upon the ruins of the re- 
public. In Florence, also, the banishment and entire 
extirpation of numerous families, were the frequent 
modes of proceeding, during the troubles which so per- 
petually sliook the Italian republics in the middle ages. 
And in revolutionary France, the assassin's knife, and 
the guillotme, superseded altogether the use of the 
French municipal code and of the law of nations ; nay, 
even of the law of nature itself. 

All these violent measures were resorted to in parti- 
cular instances of civil commotion or usurpation, accord- 
ing as one or another faction prevailed ; but were not 
derived from any permanent law of policy established 
in the respective countries, nor grounded upon the ac- 
customed legal punishment of stated crimes. In fact, 
no correct inference can be drawn from the accidental 
sev^erities of civil violence, against the equal, regular, 
and peaceable administration of justice. 

Nevertheless, after all that can be said or written 
upon this subject, it should be remembered, that the 
form of government, like every other created thing, 
must always be relative ; must always bear a close rela- 
tion to the existing circumstances of the country go- 
verned. In e\ery free country, the form of government 
must always be the result of, and adapted to, the feel- 
ings, affections, and habits of the people; who would 
soon break up any political establishment opposed to 
such habits, affections, and feelings; and therefore, if 
an hereditary monarchy, an hereditary aristocracy, and 
an hereditary transmission of property, have been found 
well suited tn the feelings and habits of the people of 

.29 



226 RESOURCES OF THE UMTED STATES.] 

England ; experience has fully shown, that an elective 
executive, an elective Senate, and a general distribution 
of property, are equally well suited to the affections and 
habits of the people of the United States. And as long 
as those habits and affections shall continue to be repub- 
lican and democratic, will the government continue to 
be a representative republic ; nor would it be other than 
folly, and madness, and crime, in any politician to wish 
it different. Where are the materials m the republican 
equality of the United States to be found, out of which 
may be composed an hereditary sovereign, an hereditary 
house of peers, the vast accumulation of entailed pro- 
perty, throughout a series of ages ; and the establish- 
ment of a national church, throughout all the ranks 
and gradations of a well-compacted hierarchy ? 

Mr. Jay, late Chief Justice of the United States, in 
examining the question, whether or not an American 
State can be sued in the federal courts, draws with great 
precision the broad line of demarcation between the 
nature and jurisdiction of the American and European 
governments. This venerable statesman and incorrup- 
tible patriot says, that " prior to the revolution, all the 
country now possessed by the United States, was a part 
of the dominions belonging to the British Crown. All 
the land in this country was then held, mediately or 
immediately, by grants from that crown ; of which all 
the American people were subjects, and owed allegiance 
to the King; from whom flowed all the civil autliority 
exercised here. They were fellow-subjects and one 
people; who at the revolution in 1771, appointed their 
general or national delegates in Congress. The decla- 
ration of Independence, in 1776, found the American 
people, throughout all the colonies or provinces, already 
united for general purposes ; and at the same time, pro- 
viding for their more domestic concerns, by State con- 
ventions and other temporary arrangements. 

" From the crown of Great Britain, the sovereignty of 
the United States passed to the American people ; and 
the unappropriated lands belonging to that crown, passed 
not to the people of the colony, or State within whose 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 227 

limits they were situated, but to the whole people of the 
United States. Thirteen State sovereignties emerged 
from the principles of the revolution, combined with 
local convenience and considerations ; but the people still 
considered themselves, in a national point of view, as one 
people; and managed their national concerns accord- 
ingly. Afterward, in the hurry of war, and in the 
warmth of mutual confidence, they made a confederation 
of the States the basis of a general government ; and 
more recently, in their national and collective capacity, 
the people established the present Federal Constitution ; 
in establishing which, they acted as sovereigns of the 
whole country, and declared that the State governments 
and Constitutions should be bound by, and conform to, 
the Consiitution of the United States. Every State 
Constitution is a compact, made by and between the 
citizens of a State, to govern themselves in a certain 
manner ; and the Constitution of the United States is a 
compact, made by the people of the United States, to 
govern themselves, as to general objects, in a certain 
manner. By this great compact, however, many pre- 
rogatives were transferred to the national government ; 
such as making war and peace; contracting alliances j 
coining money, &c. The sovereignty of the nation be- 
ing in the people of the nation, and the residuary sove- 
reignty of each State being in the people of each State j 
a comparison of these sovereignties with those of Eu- 
rope may show whether or not all the prerogatives of 
European sovereignty are essential to American sove- 
reignty. 

" The sovereignties in Europe, and particularly in 
England^ exist on feudal principles, which consider the 
prince as the sovereign, and the people as his subjects, 
and regard his person as the object of allegiance, and 
exclude the notion of his being on an equal footing with 
a subject, either in a court of justice or elsewhere. 
The feudal system contemplates the prince as the foun- 
tain of honour and authority, from whose grace and 
grant flow all franchises, immunities, and privileges ; 
whence such a sovereign cannot be amenable to a court 



228 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

of justice, nor subjected to judicial control and actual 
constraint. It -was of necessity, therefore, that suability 
became incompatible ^vith sovereignty. Besides, the 
prince, having all the executive powers, the judgment of 
the court would, in fact, be only monitory, not manda- 
tory to him ; and a capacity to be advised is quite a 
distinct thing from a capacity to be sued. The same 
feudal notions run through all their jurisprudence, and 
constantly keep in view the broad line of distinction be- 
tween the prince and the subject. But no such ideas 
prevail in the United States. At the revolution the 
sovereignty (}iG\o\\Q(\ upon the American />eop/c, who are 
truly tlie sovereigns of the country, but they are sove- 
reigns without subjects, (unless the negro slaves are 
such) and have none to govern but themselves ; the 
citizens of America are all equal as fellow-citizens, and 
as joint tenants in the national sovereignty. The dif- 
ferences between feudal sovereignties and governments 
founded on compacts, create a dilTerence in their re- 
spective prerogatives. Sovereignty is the right to go- 
vern ; and a nation or State sovereign is the person or 
persons in whom that right resides. 

" In Europe the sovereignty is in the prince ; in the 
United States it rests with the people ; there, the sove- 
reign actually administers the government, here, never, 
in a single instance ; our State governors are only the 
agents of the people, and, at most, stand in the same 
relation to their sovereign in which regents in Europe 
stand to their sovereigns. European princes have per- 
sonal powers, dignities, and pre-eaiinences, but Ameri- 
can rulers have only ojicial privileges and rank, nor do 
they partake in the sovereignty (whether State or na- 
tional) otherwise, or in any other capacity, than as pri- 
vate citizens." 

To these observations of Mr. Jay, it might be added, 
that in every free country the government runs a course 
similar to that of the common law ; it has its origin in the 
wants, and is adapted to the conveniences and views of 
the community ; grows with its growth, and embraces 
all the exigences of the nation, as it passes through its 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 229 

successive stages of infancy, youth, manhood, and age. 
As the government of a country is formed 6y, so it ma- 
terially helps to, form the character of the people, by 
constant action and reaction upon each other. It is a 
notorious fact, that the republican polity of the United 
States, in combination with some other circumstances, 
has rendered the American population superior to that 
of any other country, ancient or modern. A vast ex- 
tent of territory, averaging a fertile soil, and a favoura- 
ble climate; a comparatively thin population; high 
wages of labour ; an abundance of provisions ; a variety 
of employments, in the labours of agriculture, the pur- 
suits of commerce, the sports of the field and of the 
forest, all conspire to give physical activity and strength 
to the inhabitants of the United States. 

The general diffusion of elementary and popular in 
telligence among all classes of society, more particularly 
in New-England, gives to the inhabitants of the United 
States a larger average of mental activity and power 
than falls to the lot of the mass of the people in most 
other countries. Indeed, with the exception of Scot- 
land, Holland, Sweden, and the Protestant Cantons of 
Switzerland, no country, save America, gives to its 
people at large the means of acquiring the rudiments 
of education ; and Consequently the improvement and 
expansion of the general intellect of the nation are pre- 
vented. The sovereignty residing in the people ; their 
political equality ; their stake in the commonwealth, by 
the right of suffrage, gives to the citizens of the United 
States a greater moral elevation, a higher consciousness 
of self-importance, respect, and dignity, than are to be 
found in the people of any other country under the ca- 
nopy of Heaven. 

Whence, in the prosecution of the arts of peace, 
whether at home or abroad ; in agricultural toil ; in 
mechanical skill ; in mercantile enterprise, the Ameri- 
cans exhibit an aggregate of physical strength, activity, 
and perservance ; of mental quickness, acuteness, and 
comprehension ; of moral energy, loftiness, and power, 
surpassing that of any other entire nation. And in the 



230 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

perils of warfare, amidst the noise and fire, and smoke, 
and carnage of the battle, whether on the ocean or on the 
land, the American squadrons do by no means yield the 
palm of deliberate valour, jiccomplished skill, and heroic 
patriotism, to the embodied legions of ancient Greece 
and Rome, nor to the well-appointed hosts of the great- 
est nations of modern Europe. There must be much of 
intrinsic, radical excellence in the political institutions of 
a country, which have lent their elHcient aid to form the 
physical, intellectual, and moral character of suck a peo- 
ple as are now spreading themselves over the vast and 
various territory of the United States, and daily and 
hourly reclaiming the waste and wilderness from the 
dominion of nature to the cultivation of man. And 
while these general causes continue to operate, the 
people of the United States will continue to average a 
physical, intellectual, and moral superiority over those 
of every other nation; and so long may they well con- 
tinue to cherish their present form of government as ad- 
mirably adapted to their feelings, their affections, their 
habits, and their interests. 

It is, however, quite another and a distinct considera- 
tion, how far a government, based altogether in demo- 
cracy, where the people, either immediately or mediate- 
ly ; that is to say, immediately in thk-ir own persons, or 
mediately through the medium of electors chosen by 
themselves, elect all their rulers, executive, senatorial, 
and representative ; hoio far such a government would 
be able to sustain the pressure of an overgrown popu- 
lation, elbowing each other for a morsel of bread, and 
greatly deteriorated in their physical, intellectual, and 
moral qualities, as in the old and fully peopled coun- 
tries of Europe. At this hour, the United States do 
not average five persons to a square mile ; the State of 
New-Yoili gives only twenty to every square mile, and 
the most po|»ulous State, Connecticut, not more than 
fiftij ; whereas, in England, Ireland, France, and the 
United Netherlands, the average is two hundred souls to 
each square mile. And it becomes a serious question 
for the American statesman to ponder whether or not 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 23| 

the present form and system of government will be able 
to restrain and keep in order such a populace as now 
presses upon the respective rulers in Paris, London, and 
Dublin ; and whether or not the many myriads, who 
must then be scantily fed, clothed, lodged, and taught, 
will be apt, by dint of universal suffrage, to pass an 
Agrarian law ; or, by the more summary mode of sud- 
den violence, scatter the property of the comparatively 
few who might then be in easy circumstances ? 

At all events, such a state of things opens a wide 
field of active enterprise to ambitious and unprincipled 
demagogues, inviting them to put into riotous motion the 
great mass of the people ; and what such a mass, so put 
in motion, can do, has been fully shown by revolutionary 
France ; the effects of whose anarchial movements are 
seen all over Europe at this moment, and will never 
cease to be felt, in every nerve and artery of man's so- 
cial state, as long as the world itself endures. What- 
ever other political lessons the French revolution might 
have taught, it has rendered perfectly intelligible this 
truth ; namely, that whenever the people of any country 
choose to move in mass, they can tear up from its foun- 
dations their existing government, and scatter its frag- 
ments to the winds of heaven ; and there never are 
wanting, perhaps, in any country, (certainly not in any 
country whose political institutions are cast in a popular 
mould,) a sufficient number of daring and turbulent spi- 
rits, who eagerly desire so to stir up and incite the popu^ 
lace to violence, that they themselves may ride aloft in 
the whirlwind, and direct the storm. The Emperor 
Alexander seems to be so much alive to this sign of the 
times, that he actually appears to labour to play the 
part of a good democrat himself 

At the present hour, indeed, no such danger presses 
imminently upon the United States ; nor will it, proba 
bly, so long as the western country opens such an im- 
mense extent of fertile soil, and favourable location, 
that those needy and desperate adventurers, whose 
pernicious habits of idleness and vice render them alike 



232 RESOURCES OF THE UXITED STATES. 

unable and unfit to live in a state of orderly and well- 
regulated society, can flock thither, and evaporate, iti 
reclaiming the wilderness, that factious violence, and dis- 
contented disposition, which would be much more de- 
structively employed in plundering the property and 
cutting the throats of their more sober-minded lellow- 
citizens. M. Talleyrand was greatly surprised to find 
that in the United States, some few years after the close 
of the revolutionary war, the ordinary effects of a revo- 
lution Avere not visible in the condition of the communi- 
ty ; and he philosophizes on it thus : every change lays 
the foundation for another, says Machiavelli; and, in 
fact, without speaking of the hatreds which they perpe- 
tuate, and of the motives for vengeance which they leave 
in the minds of men, revolutions that have shaken every 
thing, and in which the whole community has taken 
part, create a general restlessness of mind, a craving 
after change, an indefinite eagerness for hazardous en- 
terprises, a vague and turbulent ambition, whose ten 
dencies are unceasingly to alter and destroy every thing 
that is. 

This is more emphatically true, when the revolution 
has been made in the name of liberty ; — a free govern- 
ment, says Montesquieu ; that is, one always agitated; 
and it being impossible to stop the agitation, it must be 
regulated so as to exercise itself, fiof at the expense, but 
for the promotion of the public happiness. After the 
crisis of revolutions, there are always many men worn 
out and made old under the impression of misfortune ; 
such men are not apt to love their country, in which 
they have experienced nothing but misery ; and their 
hatred must be guarded against, and, if possible, render- 
ed impotent. Time and good laws, indeed, will do 
much ; but establishments and outlets for such danger- 
ous beings are necessary. In Jimerica^ after a revolu- 
tion, very dissimilar doubtless to that of France, there 
remained only slight traces of ancient animosities ; but 
little agitation ana inquietude ; few, or none, of those 
symptoms which, in general, threaten every moment the 



K£SOURCES OF THE UNITED STATE3. 233 

tranqulllltj of States newly bursting into freedom. One 
great cause of this strange appearance deserves consi- 
deration. 

No doubt the American^ hke other revolutions, had 
left in the minds of men dispositions to excite or receive 
new troubles ; but this tieed of agitation had been able 
to find a diiferent satisfaction in a vast and new country, 
where adventurous projects allure the mind ; where 
immense tracts of uncultivated lands give men a facility 
of employing a fresh activity, far from the scene of their 
first dissentlons ; of placing their hopes and fears in 
fresh speculations ; of plunging themselves at once into 
the midst of a crowd of new schemes ; of amusing them- 
selves by frequent change of place; and eventually ex- 
tinguishing, within their bosoms, the flame of the revo- 
lutionary passions. 

This very facility, however, of emigration into the 
western country, raises another very important question 
for the contemplation of the American statesman. The 
direct tendency of such emigration is to enable the 
western territory, in the course of a few years, to out- 
number, both in the Senate and in the House of Repre- 
sentatives, the Atlantic States. Which being done, the 
Western States, as great m/a«c? nations, and erroneously 
considering that the commercial policy of the Atlantic 
seaboard is opposed to their ^igricultural interests, will 
be apt to sacrifice that commercial policy to their own 
mistaken views of territorial ag^o-randizement. Such an 
alteration in the system of government would be most 
pernicious to New-England, the cradle of the revolution, 
and the efficient founder of American independence. 
The soil of New-England does not raise a sufficient 
quantity of provisions to maintain a crowded population, 
but its long line of sea and river coast, its numerous 
harbours, and the habitual enterprise of its people, give 
it a commercial capability, certainly never surpassed, if 
ever equalled by any other nation. Hence Mr. Picker- 
ing, one of the most enlightened and intrepid of her 
statesmen, said, in reference to his New-England fellow- 
citizens, that their farms were on the ocean. 

30 



234 RESOURCES OF THE UNITH) STATES. 

Great as was once the welgrht of New-England in the 
American councils, her influence of late has been borne 
down by the preponderance of the west. New-Eng- 
land, including Massachusetts and Maine, New-Hamp- 
shire, Vermont, Rhode-Island, and Connecticut, covers 
only a surface of little more than sixty thousand square 
miles, and contains a population of about one million 
and a half; whereas, the western country already 
counts a greater number of States — as Ohio, Kentucky, 
Tennessee, Mississippi, Indiana, and Louisiana, which 
give it a preponderance in the Senate of the United 
States; — in addition to which there is an immense ex- 
tent of surplus territory, out of which new States with- 
out number may be carved in the lapse of a few years. 
Its population already reaches between two and three 
millions, which enables it to vote down New-England in 
the House of Representatives ; and it covers a surface 
of more than one million Jive hundred thousand square 
miles; that is to say, more th^n fifteen times as large as 
the British Isles, England, Ireland, and Scotland, put 
together ; and average a fertile soil, admirably adapted 
to sustain a very full and numerous population ; a popu- 
lation abundantly sufficient to outvote not only the New- 
England, but all the other A dan tic States; all the 
States that composed the old Ufiion which converted 
America from a British colony into an independent 
empire. 

The commercial policy is necessary to the very exist- 
ence of New-England, whose depopulation must follow 
as an inevitable result from its destruction or restriction ; 
and its tide of emitfrationauscments the numbers and re- 
sources of that western country, which is inclined to 
strike a deathblow to the prosperity of the Atlantic sea- 
board. There cannot well be a more erroneous politi- 
cal theory, than that the interests of agriculture are op- 
posed to those of commerce, and conversely; for the 
facts and proofs that merely agricultural nations can 
never become either prosperous or powerful, and diat 
commerce most materially forwards the improvement 
of agriculture itself, and of national wealth and civiliza- 



RfeSOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 235 

tion, see " the Resources of the British Empire," pp. 
383, 398, 487, 490. If the western and agricultural 
pohcj should prevail, the Atlantic States will suffor, in 
the following order; New-England most, then New- 
York, New-Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland, then 
Pennsylvania, which being a great manufacturing State, 
depends less upon foreign commerce; then Virginia, 
the two Carolinas, and Georgia, Avhich are great plant- 
ing States, their staples being tobacco, rice, and 
cotton. 

The tendency of all this, beyond a peradventure is, 
either to break up the Federal Union, and entail a per- 
petuity of anarchy and civil broils throughout the whole 
continent ; or to crush the Atlantic States beneath the 
enormous hoofs of the western mammoth. 

If however, from these, or from any other causes, the 
British government should suppose, that the United 
States are destitute of resources, and the peeple reluc- 
tant to engage in a new war, on account of the events 
of the recent conflict, it is egregiously mistaken. The 
resources, territorial, intellectual, and moral, of this 
country, are immense and various, and widening on all 
sides with inconceivable rapidity; and the settled con- 
viction of the American people, arising out of the cir- 
cumstances of the last war is, that they are decidedly 
superior to the British ; and can always beat them man 
to man, ship to ship, gun to gun, bayonet to bayonet, 
both on the flood, and in the field. And uncounted 
myriads of American hearts now beat high and quick, 
in eager aspirations for another contest with Britain ; a 
spirit which the government carefully cherishes, by 
newspaper effusions, by pubhc toasts and orations, by 
congressional and State legislative speeches and resolu- 
tions ; the great objects of American ambition being to 
annex to their already too gigantic dominion, the British 
North- American colonies on the continent, and the 
West-India Islands ; and also the Spanish colonies bor- 
dering on the Southern States. 

The general government^ indeed, was itself broken 
down during the last war ; it fled at Bladensburgh ; 



236 RESOURCES OF THE U^^TED STATE?. 

gave up Washington to the flames of a victorious ene- 
mj, and were unable to send a single recruit to their 
skeleton armies, or to pour a single stiver into their ex- 
hausted treasury. But the people never despaired of 
the republic; they always showed what feats of heroism 
they were capable of performing, when directed by 
competent leaders; at Plattsburgh, at Baltimore, at Ncw- 
Orieans, they rolled back the tide of invasion, and de- 
monstrated the fatal folly of attempting to fix a hostile 
army on the soil of America. On the lakes, and on 
the ocean, the American stars were flying above the red 
cross flag of England ; the American ships were better 
built, better manned, and better fought than those of 
Britain; as is natural to suppose, when of two kindred 
nations, equally brave, the one has an overgrown navy too 
large for its population and resources; while the other 
has only a few select ships, the crews of which are all 
picked men and skilful seamen. The fashionable po- 
pular logic in this country is, " the British beat the 
French, both by sea and land, the Americans beat the 
British ; and therefore, the United States have nothing 
to fear from European prowess; certainly not from 
Enghind^ if she conducts her future wars so clumsily as 
she did the last." 

The American government will probably never again 
exhibit such a spectacle of nerveless impotence, as was 
displayed during the last war. It is daily and hourly 
acquiring fresh strength ; Its Influence over the United 
States bank will give it the command of the national 
purse, and facilitate the raising of loans. Its military 
academies throughout the Union are rendering abun- 
dant the materials of a skilful, well-disciplined, well-ap- 
pointed regular army; its dock-yards and arsenals are 
well supplied, and no effort or expense spared, to create 
a powerful navy, consisting of first-rate ships of the line, 
large frigates, sloops, steam batteries, &c. besides the 
fleets on the lakes: all which, manned by Jimerican 
sailors, will give to the general government a formida- 
ble influence, both in peace and war, with the greatest 
European sovereignties. The American rulers have 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



237 



become wiser by their own experience, have profited 
by their own blunders, have extracted strength from a 
sense of their own weakness. They are not likely 
again to plunge into a war, without funds, and without 
men ; they are now preparing, in the bosom of peace, 
the means of future conflict; by building up the finan- 
ces of the country ; by planting every where the germs 
of an army : by sowing those teeth, which will soon 
start up into bands of armed warriors ; by a rapid aug- 
mentation of their navy ; and above all, by attempting 
to allay the animosities of party spirit, and endeavouring 
to direct the whole national mind and inclination of the 
United States, towards their aggrandizement by con- 
quest, alike on the land and on the ocean; by adding 
to their present immense empire, the continental posses- 
sions of Spain and England, and the British insular do- 
mains in the West Indies. 

The federal government, to be sure, is radically weak 
in its frame and composition ; but hke all other govern- 
ments, it will continually increase in strength the longer 
it lasts, by the natural tendency of power, in the hands 
of all men, whether good or bad, wise or foolish, to 
augment itself; by the constant growth of executive 
patronage, and of public expenditure ; by the latitude 
of construction^ which ambitious ingenuity may fasten 
upon the words and letters of the Constitution of the 
United States. Whence in the course of a few years, 
the American government will be quite strong enough 
to act a very offensive part to those European powers, 
who vainly flatter themselves with the hope, that the 
United States are in themselves impotent, and destitute 
of those resources, which are requisite to give a country 
a commanding attitude in its intercourse, pacific or bel- 
ligerent, with other nations. 

The great question now at issue between America and 
Europe, is, which of the two shall change its form and 
system of government ? whether Europe shall become 
more democratic, or the United States more aristocratic ? 
It is scarcely credible with what eagerness the presi- 
dential messages are read in every European court and 



238 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

cabinet, and among every European people. Not un' 
derstanding the nature, if they know the existence, of 
our separate State sovereignties, they are exceedingly 
surprised to find, that the general government of ten 
millions of people is carried on at an expenditure of less 
than six millions sterling a year, while the expenses of 
their own governments range from fifty to one hundred 
millions sterling per annum. And, as every very expen- 
sive government must be oppressive, because it impedes 
the progress of productive industry, and perpetuates 
the hopeless poverty of the great mass of the people, 
the Europeans are naturally led to desire that their own 
governments might approximate to that of the United 
States, in popular liberty and in moderation of expen- 
diture, while the American rulers, observing that the 
European sovereigns have more command over the po- 
pulation and resources of their respective countries than 
they can exercise over those of the Union, as naturally 
desire to build up into more extensive and permanent 
power the system and administration of the Federal 
government. 

The probable result is, that the governments of Ame- 
rica and Europe will approximate toAvards each other, 
in/act^ although in name they may still remain different; 
the generality of mankind being governed by names, 
and very apt to be shocked and roused into tumult by 
their sudden change. The European governments ge- 
nerally, although still retaining the name of monarchies, 
will, perhaps, become more representative, more demo- 
cratic ; while the government of America, still retaining 
the name of a republic, will, peradventure, become 
more aristocratic, more powerful in its executive, and 
more permanent in its Senate. The great difficulty, how- 
ever, will be, to temper the strength of the government 
with the personal liberty of the people; for it is a ge- 
neral rule, with as few exceptions as most general rules, 
that the freer the people the weaker the government, 
and conversely; the danger therefore is, lest the Ame- 
rican government, in strengthening itself, should so far 
restrain the liberties of the people, as to render them in 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 239 

the aggregate less excellent than they now are in phy- 
sical, intellectual, and moral qualities. 

At present there can be no difficulty in showing that 
the resources of the United States are relatively greater 
than those of Britain. The Bri'^ish government spends 
one-third of the whole national income of that country. 
Before the close of the war with France, the national 
income of Britain amounted to four hundred millions 
sterling per annum; the peace reduced the value of 
lands, houses, and all other productive property in that 
country, at least one half, besides throwing several 
thousand families out of all employment. The govern- 
ment did not reduce its expenditure in the same pro- 
portion ; it spends now about seventy millions sterling a 
year, while the national income, the product of all its 
houses, lands, ships, manufactures, money, and every 
species of property, is not more than two hundred milions 
sterling ; that is, giving, at five per cent, a British capi- 
tal, real and personal, of four thousand millions sterling. 
Add to this, the British national debt is above four 
thousand five hundred millions of dollars, of which, in- 
deed, the Sinking Fund has redeemed about one-third, 
or one thousand five hundred millions of dollars ; but 
that does not lessen the annual expenditure, because the 
government continues to receive the dividends of all 
the stock redeemed, which dividends are provided for 
by taxes taken from the people, the government having 
no other income than what is raised by taxation. The 
outstanding or unfunded debt also amounts to seventy 
millions sterling, and the deficit of revenue now, in the 
season of universal peace, amounts to fifteen millions 
sterling, or sixty-seven millions of dollars ; the income 
this year being fifty-two millions sterling, and the ex- 
penditure upwards of sixty-seven millions. So that, 
unless the British government can either diminish their 
expenses or augment their revenue, they must soon be- 
come bankrupt ; for the nation never can support a 
much longer continuance of loans in time of peace ; or, 
what is tantamount to loans, the issue of Exchequer 
bills, which swells the aggregate of the unfunded debt. 



240 RESOUJtCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

And there is the less prospect of Britain's hghtening 
her load of debt, on account of Mr. Vansitlart having, 
since the year 1813, broken the progressive force of 
the Sinking Fund, by diverting the dividends of the 
stock redeemed to the current expenses of the empire, 
instead of permitting them to constitute a part ot the 
income of the ^Sinking Fund, which was the essence of 
Mr. Pitt's scheme for the liquidation of the debt. The 
income of the Sinking Fund this year is under fourteen 
miUions sterhng ; if Mr. Vansittart had not stopped its 
progress, it would have been upwards of twenty-four 
millions. A deficit of only three milUons sterling was 
the proximate cause of those revolutionary movements 
whicn put the French monarchy in abeyance during 
twenty-five years. 

Besides, the British Isles have no elbow-room for the 
spreading of an increased population ; they contain only 
one hundred tliousand square miles, or six hundred 
thousand acres of land, on which twenty millions of 
people are crowded; whereas the United States cover 
a surface of more than two million five hundred tliou- 
sand square miles, or one thousand six hundred millions 
of acres, over which are thinly scattered a population of 
ten millions. The whole annual expenditure of the 
United States is not more than one-eighth of the national 
income ; say, the general government spends about six 
millions sterling, and the twenty State sovereignties 
about four millions per annum, altogether, making a 
sum total oiten millions; the national income, arising 
from the lands, houses, ships, manufacturers, money, 
and every species of property, may be estimated at 
eighty millions sterling, or three hundred and sixty mil- 
lions of dollars ; that is, giving, at five per cent, a pro- 
ductive real and personal capital of sixteen hundred 
millions sterling, or seven thousand two hundred mil- 
lions of dollars. 

The national debt of America is scarcely o«e hundred 
and twenty millions of dollars ; to set oft' against which 
there are, at least, five hundred millions of acres of 
public lands ; that is to say, lands held in trust by the 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 24 I 

general government for the people of the United States, 
and applicable to the liquidation of the debt, and to the 
current demands of the public expenditure. It is rating 
these lands much below their real value, to say they are 
Avorth a thousand milhons of dollars. These lands con- 
sist of about two hundred millions of acres, ceded by the 
different States to the United States, and of the territo- 
ry of Louisiana, purchased by the American govern- 
ment; of which, all the land not previously granted out 
by the Crowns of France and Spain belongs to the 
American government, as trustee for the American peo- 
ple. For it is a first principle in the law oi' tenures^ that 
the State, or sovereign, whether a single person, as in a 
monarchy, or the whole people, as in a republic, is the 
only original source of titles, and possesses a sovereign 
right to grant lands to whom it pleases. The prodi- 
gious extent of territory yet unoccupied, but fertile, gives 
to the United States immense resources for future 
growth in population and wealth ; for all the prosperity 
of pacific enterprise ; for all the comprehensive energy 
and perseverance of protracted warfare. So that thero 
can be no comparison between the capabilities and re- 
sources of any other country and those of the United 
States, provided the federal Union lasts, and increases 
in strength as it advances in age. 

The probable approximation of the American and 
European governments, towards each other, in effect, if 
not in form, is intimately connected with what may be 
called the revohitionary question; that is to say, the 
question first practically started by the United States, 
in their revolt from the mother country, and pushed to 
a much wider extreme by France, towards the close of 
the eighteenth century. The United States, indeed, 
only made a radical change in the form of their govern- 
ment, by converting an iiereditary monarchy into a re- 
presentative republic. They still retained, substantially, 
the laws, the religion, and the morals of the parent 
state ; and, from time to time, frame and modify their 
municipal system according to the exigency of existing 
circumstances. But revolutionary France suddenly and 

.31 ' 



21^ 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



violontly chani{cd every tiling; changed its government, 
religion, habit.s, manners, the whole frame of civil poli- 
ty and social order; nay, the very language itself, giv- 
ing it an inflated, bombastic, fraudulent character, that 
unhappily is spreading itself all over Christendom, and 
in no countries more rapidly and widely than in these 
United States and England. Every demagogue, who 
breathes mischief and ruin, talks loudly, in newspapers, 
and pamphlets, and club speeches, about " the high 
destinies of liberty,*' " the liberal spirit of the age," 
"the annihilation of all prejudices in favour of religion, 
morality, learning, and all the obsolete usages of igno- 
rant antiquity ;" the whole of which means, in his 
moutl), that all above him, whether in wealth, talent, 
learning, wisdom, virtue, or character, should be pulled 
down, and he himself exalted, according to his own no- 
tions of his ow^n transcendental merit. 

The revolutionary question, as understood and en- 
forced by its present advocates in France, Britain, and 
America, is not a question respecting the prevalence of 
any particular religious denomination, whether Papist or 
Protestant, Episcopalian or Presbyterian, Independent or 
Methodist; but it is a question between religion and no 
religion ; a flagitious attempt to carry on government, 
and social and domestic life, without any religion of any 
kind whatsoever, and consequently without any morals ; 
revelation being the basis of all moral obligation, and 
every system of morals, not so based, being easily redu- 
cible to the mere calculations of political expediency and 
personal convenience, from the /caAsv jwh aya&cv of Aris- 
totle, and the utile et honestum of Cicero, down to Hume's 
scheme of utility^ or Godwin's plan of general good; 
good so very general as to destroy all individual virtue 
and happiness. Nor is the revolutionary question a 
question as to the relative excellence of any particular 
form of government, whether a republic, or a monarchy, 
or an aristocracv, or a democracy, or an imperial auto- 
cracy be, in itself preferable ; but it is an assumption oj 
fcut. that at any time, ambitious and unprincipled men 
may labour to overset die existing order of things, un- 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 243 

tier which they live, whether as citizens or aliens, in the 
eager hope of raising themselves to turbulent and 
bloody distinction, amidst the general wreck of human 
s.ociety. 

In a word, It is a desperate experiment, to be made 
by desperate, needy, profligate adventurers, of every 
gradation of talent, knowledge, dulness, and ignorance, 
in every country, particularly in every free country, that 
religion, government, social order, private pursuits, all 
that relates to man, individually or as connected with 
his fellows, may be always kept afloat, always fluctuate 
in a revolutionary state, and the people be perpetually 
fermented by appeals to their vanity, and folly, and 
viler passions ; that ambitious demagogues may lift 
themselves up to power, and be enabled to govern by 
fraud or force, by the bayonet and sword, or by a muz- 
zled and pei^erted press. The United States, although 
at present blessed with free constitutions, and good 
codes of law, are yet revolutionary, and contain withm 
them the seeds of those sudden changes which scatter 
upon the wings of ruin all the labours and products of 
past experience, and mock the hopes of all human ex- 
pectation. France is still eminently revolutionary ; her 
present throne is placed upon the crater of an unextm- 
guished volcano, whose eructations of smouldering 
smoke, and molten stones, and burning lava, every in- 
stant threaten it with destruction. Every step, that re- 
ligion and government make, is made upon the reeking 
ashes, the still glowing embers of revolutionary fires; 
those fires which are seen in fitful and portentous blaze 
over all the extent of continental Europe. And, unhap- 
pily, neither France nor the rest of the European con- 
tinent, can find a sufficient counterpoise to the revolu- 
tionary spirit, in their own governments, which do not 
breathe a sufficient air of freedom ; nor in their legal 
codes, nor in the diffijsion of pure religion, and sound 
morality, throughout their dominions. The struggle, 
in that quarter of the globe, appears to be fast ripenmg 
into a conflict between indignant despotism and lawless 
democracy; _^the collision of wliich two opposite ex- 



244 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

trcmes cannot fail to ^hakc to its foundations the social 
fabric; and, wliichever side ultimately prevails, to steep 
the victor's wreath of triumph in tears and' blood. 

The British government, indeed, has hitherto stood 
forth as the great bulwark of social order, against the 
ever-beating tide of revolutionary fury ; but, labouring 
as she now is under the exhaustion of so long and ter- 
rible a conflict; so enormous a pressure of expenditure 
and debt; so alarming a diminution of her agriculture, 
manufactures, and commerce ; so awful an increase of 

Eauperism, in all the classes of her community; will she 
e able long to maintain the proud, but melancholy dis- 
tinction of being the solitary rock of social safety, amidst 
the storms and tempests of the agitated ocean ; the sole 
remaining monument of stable rule amidst the ruins of 
thrones, and principalities, and powers ? Even in the 
midst of her own home dominions, democracy is fast 
gaining ground, and insisting upon its sclieme of revolu- 
tionary change ; in spite of her hereditary executive, 
her hereditary peers, her recent orders of knighthood, 
her nationally established hierarchy, her close alhancc 
between Church and State. 

Meanwhile her child and rival, America, is rapidly 
emerging into unparalleled national greatness ; is flam- 
ing upwards, like a pyramid of fire; so that all the 
western horizon is in a blaze with the brightness of its 
ascending glory. Nor is the ambition of America less 
aspiring, than the progress of her power is alarming. 
The United States, not contented with their present ter- 
ritory, although more than double the extent of the 
whole Chinese empire, lay claim to both the Floridas, 
and avowedly stretch their pretensions westward to the 
Pacific Ocean ; and give very intelligible hints, through 
all the numberless organ-pipes of their followers, and 
flatterers, and servants, that they will never rest from 
their labours, till they have accomplished their aim, by 
treaty, or encroachment, or conquest; their unvarying 
motto being, dolus^ an virtus^ quis in hostc reqilirat? 

Popular governments are always sufliciently ambi- 
tious, warlike, ?ind unresponsible; too apt to encroach 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. '045 

upon their neighbours ; and not very prudish as to the 
means of aggrandizement. The United States look 
wistfully towards the British provinces on our North- 
American continent; and the unwise act of Lord Gren- 
ville, passed through Parliament in the year 1784, per- 
mitting the people of lower Canada, to conduct their 
pleadings, and promulgate their laws in the French lan- 
guage, has prevented them from ever becoming British ; 
and so far weakened the colony as an outwork of the 
mother country. It has always been the policy of able 
conquerors, as soon as possible, to incorporate their van- 
quished subjects with their own citizens, by giving them 
their own language and laws, and not suffering them 
to retain those of their pristine dominion. These were 
among the most efficient means, by which ancient Rome 
built up, and established her empire over the whole 
world ; and these were the most efficient aids, by which 
modern France spread her dominion so rapidly over the 
continent of Europe. While lower Canada continues 
to be French in language, religion, law, habits, and man- 
ners, it is obvious that her people will not make good 
British subjects ; and Britain may most assuredly look 
io the speedy loss of her North-American colonies, un- 
less she immediately sets about the establishment of an 
able statesmanlike government there, and the direction 
thitherward, of that tide of emigration from her own 
loins, which now swells the strength and resources of 
the United States. Her North-American colonies gone, 
her West-India Islands will soon follow. 

Indeed, it is now well understood, that if the Ameri- 
can government had been long-sighted and wise, the 
United States might have been a great West India pow- 
er at this moment. For Britain, during her late conflict 
with revolutionary France, offered either Cuba, or St. 
Domingo to this country; but Mr. Jefferson sufTered his 
own little personal feehngs to^vards France, and against 
England, to prompt him to decline the offer; and thus 
let slip an opportunity of aggrandizing the United 
States, which may never again occur, under such favour- 
able circumstances. The dominion of either of those 



246 RESOURCES OF THE UmXED STATES. 

great Islands would have considerably augmented the 
commerce, and increased the naval armaments of Ame- 
rica ; and also have given her a much higher importance 
in the scale of nations, than she now holds. But, diis 
aliter visum est ; the fears and hatreds of her executive 
chief, have materially delayed the career of America 
towards the summit ol iiational ascendency and great- 
ness. 

As for the Spanish colonies, they will fall, as a matter 
of course, to the superior energy and enterprise of the 
United States. For it is as natural for indolence, and 
ignorance, and procrastination, to yield to industry, to 
intelligence, and activity, as it is for the tides of the 
ocean to follow the phases of the moon. It is superla- 
tively idle to suppose, that the forlorn and beggarly go- 
vernment of Spain, headed by a patron of the inquisi- 
tion, and an embroiderer of petticoats for the Virgin 
Mary, will be able to resist the constant encroachments, 
or the direct attacks of a neighbour so enterprising, in- 
telligent, alert, dauntless, and persevering, as the United 
States. 

Nor let England ever lay the flattering unction to her 
soul, that it is possible ever to make America /icr friend. 
These two countries will never cease to be commercial 
rivals, and political enemies, until one or the other falls. 
As the world could not bear two suns, nor Persia two 
kings, so tile day is fast approaching when the globe 
will not be able to endure the existence of these two 
mighty maritime empires. The maxim of dcleyula est 
Carthago never found more cordial advocates in the Ro- 
man Senate than it now finds as applicable to Britain 
in the inmost recesses of every American bosom. But 
it behooves the United States to pause, at least for the 
present, in their strides towards territorial aggrandize- 
ment ; for it is understood that the Treaty of Viama, 
which is now the basis of national convention law in Eu- 
rope, as the Treaty of Westphalia was, prior to the 
French revolution, stipulates, that if one European na- 
tion has any domestic quarrels, either with its colonies 
or within its home dominions, the high contracting par- 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 24*7 

ties do not interfere ; but, if any power attacks the in- 
tegral empire of any European sovereignty, the parties 
to the Vienna treaty protect it. Hence, Spain and her 
colonies are left to fight out their mutual battles, as they 
best can ; but Portugal is forbidden to encroach upon 
the Spanish domains on the American continent. Un- 
less, indeed, the Holy League, which, under the veil of 
evangelical union between the contracting powers, seems 
to look towards planting the Russian flag upon the 
seven towers of Constantinople, should break in upon 
and derange the provisions of the Congress of Vienna. 

If such be the stipulations of the Vienna pact, the 
United States should be wary in their attempts on the 
Floridas, the British Northern Provinces, and West 
India islands, lest they bring all Europe upon them with 
her numerous and well-disciplined veteran armies. It is 
the business of the American government to wait, and 
nourish the growing resources of the Union, till time and 
circumstance shall dissolve the present unparalleled co- 
alition of European sovereigns, and then gradually bear 
down all possible opposition from any single foe. As 
the disposable force of every country must be always 
mainly proportioned to the compactness of its population, 
it is self-evident, that, at present, the United States, with 
only ten millions of inhabitants, spread over a territory 
of two millions and five hundred thousand square miles, 
cannot be very powerful for the purposes of offensive 
warfare ; a circumstance, probably, which the states- 
men, who framed the Federal Constitution, took into 
their consideration, since they so seem to have moulded 
that national compact as not to give the general govern- 
ment the power of carrying on an offensive warfare. 

These great men, doubtless, desired that their native 
country might possess all the means of defence, when 
assailed by an invading foe ; and, accordingly, they have 
made the most admirable provisions in the Federal 
Constitution for the accomplishment of this all-important 
object. Their apparent design being, as much as pos- 
sible, to preserve the United States free from the cala- 
mities of foreign warfare, and incite them to avail them- 



248 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATLS. 

selves of their vast p/iy^/Vr// capacities, and to accelerate 
the growth of their population and wealth, in order that 
America, at no distant day, raigiit be able to rank with 
the first-rate sovereignties of the earth, in the extent, 
permanency, and disposable eificiency of her national 
resources. By premature efforts to aggrandize them- 
selves by conquest, the United States will put all their 
present advantages in jeopardy, and endanger the dis- 
solution of the Union, by the preservation of which they 
can alone hope to become lastingly prosperous and 
great. Let them remember Franklin's position, that by 
patience and perseverance they will be able to outgrow all 
grievances, all difficulties, and all resistance. 

Is Russia now, and for the time to come, deemed 
formidable to Eiu'ope ? Behold another and a greater 
Russia here. With a better territory, a better govern- 
ment, and a better people, jlmerica is ripening fast into 
a substance, an attitude of power, which will prove far 
more terrible to the world than it is ever possible for 
the warriors of the Don or the defenders of Moscow to 
become. Let it not, for a moment, be imagined, that 
I seek to lean upon the exalted character, or to detract 
I'rom the w'ell-tried prowess of Britain! Under the 
blessing of Divine Providence, the world owes to her 
unrivalled exertions, to her vehement and sustained for- 
titude, a liberation from the most galling, base, profli- 
gate, and cruel bondage that ever stained the annals of 
the human race. Braver than Britons men cannot be. 
It is not in human nature to do more than affront death 
with cool, .collected, steady, unyielding valour. Is it 
possible for them that are born of women to display 
more unbending, more triumphant heroism, than was 
exhibited by the British on the field of Waterloo and in 
the harbour of Algiers ? 

But it is meant to assert, because it can be proved, 
that the United States, from th?ir territorial extent, 
their local situation, their political institutions, their pe- 
culiar circumstances, do produce a greater amount ot 
physical, intellectual, and moral enterprise, and force in 
the great mass of their {,>coplc, than is or can be pro- 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 249 

duced in the aggregate population o{ any other country. 
Indeed, an inquiry into the condition and character of 
the English people, would serve as the best basis on 
which to build the investigation of the characteristic 
qualities of the American population, seeing that both 
nations are sprung from the same native stock; speak 
the same language, and exercise the same religion ; are 
governed by similar laws ; exhibit in their hves and de- 
portments similar habits, manners, and customs. And 
if, under the physical and moral circumstances of Eng- 
land, her comparatively narrow territory; her actually 
crowded population; her continual wars; her frequent 
internal convulsions ; her prodigious national expendi- 
ture ; her enormous public debt, the great body of her 
people have been progressively improving^ physically, in- 
tellectually, and morally, during the last entire century, 
and are now, as they have long been, decidedly superior 
to the population of every other European country ; a 
fortiori^ must the people of the United States, during the 
same period, have been bettered in all their qualities 
and conditions, by the progress of civilization diffused 
among a comparatively thin population, spread over a 
vast and various soil ; by unfrequent foreign wars ; by 
internal peace; by a small national expenditure; by a 
trifling public debt; by institutions, political, moral, and 
religious, which give the freest scope to personal acti- 
vity and individual enterprise. 

A late minister from the Court of St. James, near 
the American government, Mr. Jackson, who had sur- 
veyed with a statesman's eye, every court and every 
country, every cabinet and every people in Europe, 
both insular and continental, told me, " That he had 
passed through and diligently studied the States of 
New- York and New-England ; that he had never seen 
such decided materials of national greatness, as their 
population exhibited; that the American people were 
right-minded, strong-minded, sound-minded, and high- 
minded." And in all the soberness of solemn truth, the 
people of this country /iare verified the prophetic words 
of the depa^-ted statesman; thev have, indeed, fully 

32 ' 



250 RESOURCES OF TIIE UNITED STATE!?. 

shown, that Englibhmcn do not deorcnerate In tlie soil of 
America; for they liave compelled the nictcor-liag of 
England, which had waved in triumph on the ocean fot 
a thousand years, to lower its ancient ensign beneath the 
new-born standard of her child ; they have driven back 
irom before their hardy yeomanry the conquerors of 
France, the deliverers of Portugal, the liberators of 
Spain, tlie emancipators of Europe ; they have twined 
round their victorious brows wreaths of naval and of 
miiitary glory, which will flourish in eternal verdure, long 
as the everlasting hills shall rest upon their foundations 
and the stars of Heaven continue to shed their light. 

In the turmoil of battle, and in the pursuits of peace, 
the Americans effect more by a given number of people 
than the population of any other country caw effect. At 
present, indeed, the European land tactics are impracti- 
cable in the United States; huge masses of cavalry, nu- 
merous parks of artillery, and solid columns of infantry 
cannot act in a country overgrown with trees, and 
bushes, and underwood, which afford means and shelter 
for the deadly musketry and riflemen of America to 
destroy their enemy at their own leisure — themselves 
unseen and inaccessible. The United States must wait 
till their country is more cleared of its forests, particu- 
larly on their borders, before they can exhibit any milita- 
ry conflicts on a large and comprehensive scale. JNlean- 
while the ocean is open, and will, ere louir, have its wa- 
ters deeply died with American and British blood, con- 
tending for the exclusive dominion of that element, which 
is, emphatically, the cradle and the home of the mari- 
ners of both nations. 

From the commencement of the French revolution, 
in the year 1789, to the close of the late war between 
America and England, in 1815, the political jjartics m 
the United States were opposed to each other with ex- 
ceeding bitterness. Party spirit used to prevent social 
intercourse and poison domestic peace. The tyranny 
of faction was much greater in this country than it ever 
has been in Britain, where it neither disturbs the har- 
mony of families nor trenches upon the decorum ol 



J^SOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 251 

society, either among the leaders or followers of the 
two o-reat contending parties which divide, agitate, and 
govern that kingdom. — See the " Resources of the Bri- 
tish Empire," pp. 351 — 376, for the facts and reasons 
to prove, that no free government can be carried on but 
by the agency of contending parties ; and that no dan- 
ger is to be apprehended cither to the ministry or the 
people from the prevalence of party spirit. Since the 
peace of 1815, Mr. Monroe's tour, aided by the cir- 
cumstances of the country and the times, has consider- 
ably abated the acrimony of faction in the United States, 
and democrats and federalists now dine at the same 
table without any fear of reciprocal offence. 

Some of the wisest and best men of America, parti- 
cularly Washington, Hamilton, and Ames, laboured to 
convince their fellow-citizens of the necessity of extin- 
guishing parties in our popular and elective government. 
President Washington's " Farewell Address" to the 
people of the United States, General Hamilton's Essays 
in the Federalist, and Mr. Fisher Ames's lucubrations 
scattered over all his works, contain most forcible and 
eloquent arguments against the mischiefs of faction. 
But, after all that can be said or written on the subject, 
a country must either be governed by the bayonet, and 
be enslaved, or governed by party, and be free. Par- 
ties in the United States are, substantially, like those in 
England. Two great rival sections of the people con- 
tend with each other for the exclusive administration of 
the government, not because they think themselves 
always right, and their opponents always wrong, but 
because, on the whole^ they think they could manage the 
government better than their antagonists. They differ 
more about the means than the end ; tiicy both wish to 
exalt their country, and render her prosperous at home 
and respectable abroad, however they may disagree as 
to the measures by which this common object can be 
best attained. 

Indeed noit\ the federalists and democrats do not dif- 
fer, even as to the means; they both wish to exalt their 
country by the same means. For more than twenty 



252 RESOURCES OF THE U.\ITED STATES. 

years, truly, they varied most essentially in their notions 
respecting the best niotlc of administering the govern- 
ment; the democrats denouncing foreign commerce, fo- 
reign diplomacy, internal taxation, a national bank, a re- 
gular army, and a fighting navy, as being all extremely 
anti-republican. But for the last two or three years, 
they seem to have outgrown these theories ; and to have 
begun, like other people, to take experience and fact, 
as the best foundation, and safest guides of political 
economy. 

The United States are so very favourably circum- 
stanced for a rapid growth in wealth, and population, 
and national strength, that it requires only the exercise 
of a little common sense, to administer the /tome govern- 
ment, and permit the laws and institutions, which are 
generally most propitious to the establishment and fur- 
therance of popular liberty, to take their due course. 
It requires, however, considerable sagacity and prudence, 
so to conduct our foreign affairs, as to secure the friend- 
ship and respect of other potentates. But there is no 
occasion to enter into any detail on this point; seeing 
that General Washington has left a bright example of 
all that a wise and upright administration of govern- 
ment can accomplish, for die welfare of the country; 
and our future presidents have only to follow faithfully 
in his foot-tracks, in order to ensure, under Providence, 
the internal prosperity, and the external respectability 
of America. 

In one, and that the most important department of 
foreign policy, namely, diplomacy, the American govern- 
ment under all its administrations, has exhibited great 
talents and skill. In the United States, there is no corps 
of regularly bred statesmen, as in Europe ; but our 
politicians generally, and more especially our diploma- 
tists, are taken from the class of practising lawyers, who 
being men of business, shrewd observers, and well ac- 
quainted with mankind, have always been a match, and 
often an overmatch, for the European ambassadors, 
and plenipotentiaries, who have been systematically 
trained in the routine of office, amidst all the forms and 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



253 



devices of the closet. During the last fifty years, Ame- 
rican diplomacy has signalized itself in every court and 
cabinet of Europe ; and the names of Jay, Adams, Mor- 
ris, King, Jefferson, Marshal, Monroe, Pinkney, and the 
Commissioners at Ghent, vv^ill deservedly rank as high 
as those of any diplomatic characters, which have adorn- 
ed other countries. The peace concluded with Eng- 
land in 1783, by Mr. Jay, Mr. Adams, and Dr. Frank- 
lin, and the commercial Treaty made with England in 
1794, by Mr. Jay, are evidences of consummate diplo- 
matic wisdom and skill. A very slight perusal of the 
American State papers, lately published at Boston, will 
show that the American diplomatists, invariably, wield a 
more pointed and powerful pen than their European 
antagonists ; that they press their arguments with more 
force, place them in a greater variety of lights, and de- 
feat, or evade, or parry, the strokes of their opponents 
with more adroitness, and effect. The Marquis of 
Wellesley, in April 1815, said in his place on the floor 
of the House of Lords, when discussing the negotiation 
between the United States and Britain, respecting peace, 
'• that the American commissioners had shown the most 
astonishing superiority over the British during the whole 
of the correspondence. The noble Earl (Liverpool) 
opposite, probably felt sore at this observation ; as no 
doubt the British papers were communicated from the 
common fund of ministers, in England." 

The American commissioners at Ghent, were Mr. 
Gallatin, late Secretary of the United States Treasury, 
and now Ambassador to France; Mr. John Quincy 
Adams, a Massachusetts lawyer ; formerly minister to 
the courts of Berlin, Petersburgh, and London, now 
Secretary of State ; Mr. Bayard, a Delaware lawyer, 
and a Senator of the United States ; Mr. Clay, a Ken- 
tucky lawyer, and Speaker of the House of Represent- 
atives in Congress ; and Mr. Jonathan Russel, formerly 
a merchant in this city. 

Considering that diplomacy is much more effectual to 
permanently aggrandize a nation than war and conquest, 
it is astonishing that so few governments, in the history 



2M 



RESOURCES OF THE IMTEU STATES 



of the "world, have availed themselves of its aid. Lfn- 
less we admit tiie United States within the circle, there 
are only three nations, that have successfully seconded 
their efforts at extension and power, by diplomatic skill; 
namely, ancient Rome, modern France, and Russia ; 
the reasons why British diplomacy has been for the last 
five hundred years, in general, so deplorably defective, 
are detailed at length in " the Resources of the British 
Empire," pp. 333, 344. 

Now, the only sound policy of every nation is to se- 
cure its independence, to augment its power, to elevate 
its rank. Neither of these three great objects can be 
pursued singly, they are Inseparably interwoven with 
one another. The national independence of a State, can 
only be secured by an unremitted progression in positive 
power; of which a greater relative rank is the neces- 
sary consequence. It is as much the duty of States, as 
of individuals, constantly to use all honourable means 
of advancing themselves in wealth, character, influence, 
authority, and power. All nations begin to decline, 
from the moment they cease to rise. JVon progedi est 
rcgrcdi^ is the great political axiom of human affairs. 
As soon as a man ceases to improve his mind by obser- 
vation, study, and reflection, his intellect begins to lose 
ground in acuteness, strength, splendour, and compre- 
hension. The ambition, avarice, and ignorance oi in- 
dividuals, allow to nations no intervals of stationary 
quiet, or drowsy security. 

In modern times, however, tlic only European govern- 
ments, that seem to have acted on any digested system 
of national aggrandizement, are that of France, since 
the accession of Louis the 14th, in 1G43; and that of 
Russia, since the commencement of Peter's reign, in 
1G96. These two great rtonarchs felt the internal 
strength, and appreciated the immense natural resources 
of their respective empires. Although Louis did not 
in his own person, succeed in the ultimate object of ac- 
quiring a universal French monarchy, he yet fixed the 
ascendency of France over the other European powers 
on a broad and permanent basis. When he ascended 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. O n r. 

ihe throne, his dominions were hemmed in, on all sides, 
by powerful neighbours. The house of Austria, in its 
two fi^reat branches, swayed the sceptres of Germany 
and Spain, whose territories almost surrounded France; 
the republic of Holland completed the line of circumva- 
lation. Nevertheless, although, during the last thirty 
years of his reign, Louis was almost incessantly beaten 
by the allied armies of Austria, England, and Holland, 
he contrived, by the superior skill of French diplomacy, 
to enlarge his own hereditary possessions, by consider- 
able acquisitions from Germany ; to place a Bourbon on 
the throne of Spain, to shatter Austria, to crush Holland, 
to cripple England, to leave France so intrinsically 
powerful, as to enable her, under the augmented im- 
pulses of revolutionary action, to be an overmatch for 
the other powers of continental Europe, not merely 
single-handed, but for a combination of them all ; so 
that, in 1813, 1814, and 1815, about a century after the 
death of Louis the Fourteenth, it required the united 
strength, in its full exertion, of Russia, Austria, Prussia, 
Sweden, Spain, and Portugal, aided by the fleets and 
armies of England, to rescue tl^j^/whole European con- 
tinent from the humiliation of French oppression. 

Contrast the adroit diplomacy of France with the 
most miserable negotiations of England, at the peace of 
Amiens. So low, indeed, had England fallen under 
the degrading conditions of this treaty ; so completely 
evaporated was that spirit, which, under the auspices of 
Marlborough, had rendered her the arbitress of Europe; 
that spirit which, under the presiding mind of Chatham, 
had smitten both branches of the House of Bourbon, 
and loosened the joints of the loins of France and Spain; 
that the Addington administration, actually submitted 
to the mandate of Buonaparte, and indicted Mr. Peltier 
for a libel against Napoleon, whom he represented as a 
ruffian, an upstart, and an assassin. It was high time 
lor Messrs. Addington and Company to obliterate from 
the memory of the English people, and to raze from the 
records of history all mention of the fields of Poictiers, 
Cressy, and Agincourt, cf the battles of Blenheim, 



256 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Ramillies, and Malplaquct ; and to write the name, 
French department^ upon the veteran front of the British 
empire. 

While revolutionary France was making herself com- 
plete mistress of the south-west half of continental Eu- 
rope, another power of equal force (as subsequent 
events proved,) claimed a similar dominion over the 
northern and estern sections of that district of the globe. 
After Austria was humbled, Prussia beaten down, the 
German empire broken up, Flanders, Holland, Switzer- 
land, and Italy, conquered by the Gallic armies, the 
political powers and military forces of the European 
continent were divided between the governments of 
France and Russia. These two mighty empires touch- 
ed each other in the beginning of the year 1812; Ber- 
lin, Vienna, and Constantinople, Avere only three milita- 
ry posts in the line of their imperial demarcation. A 
free and secure communication between the southern 
provinces of Russia, and the Mediterranean Sea, was 
an essential part of the system of policy established by 
the first Peter. This scheme of national aggrandize- 
ment has been pursued by all his successors, and is of 
such importance to the Russian empire, as never to be 
abandoned without a severe struggle. 

Russia covets Candia, Negropont, and the other Greek 
Islands in the Archipelago, as posts that might com- 
mand the communication between the Black Sea and 
the Mediterranean. Oczakow is the key to the north- 
ern provinces of Turkey, and is to Constantinople what 
the Pyrenees ought always to be to Madrid. That 
post Russia will never relinquish; she took it from the 
Grand Signior, in 1737, Avhen England was mediating 
in favour of Turkey, with thirty-six line of battle-ships. 
Russia has steadily, and successfully, pursued her 
scheme of national affffrandizement, since the accession 
of Peter tlie First, to the present hour; in consequence 
of which she now possesses a territory larger than ail 
the rest of Europe, with a brave and hardy population 
of more than fifty millions, four-fifths of which inhabit 
her European dominions. She has recently added Po- 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 257 

land, as an outwork to her empire ; and, in a {ew years, 
probably it will require nearly as powerful a coalition to 
stop her progress to universal dominion as was found 
necessary, in 1813, to reduce revolutionary France 
within reasonable limits. Indeed, France, and Rus- 
sia, are the only two European powers who sys- 
tematically act upon the conviction, that skilful ne- 
gotiation is as necessary as victory in war to augment 
and consolidate national dominion. The Treaty of 
Amiens gave more power and influence to France than 
she could have acquired by ten years of successful 
fighting. 

Nay, ever since nations have fought to extend their 
dominions, their progression in power has depended 
more upon the ability of negotiators and peacemakers 
than upon the talents of military heroes. Every one 
knows that republican Rome augmented and consolida- 
ted all her military conquests by the consummate skill 
of her diplomacy; her whole history, during the first 
seven hundred years of her national existence, was httle 
else than an alternation of successful wars, improved by 
dexterous negotiation, and of dexterous negotiation 
preparing the way for successful wars. Peter the First, 
the founder of Russian je;reatness, was a profound politi- 
cian, as well as an able soldier: he knew that to con- 
quer in war was not enough; that not to be con- 
quered, in his turn, it was necessary to retain, in peace, 
such posts as could both guarantee the possession of 
his own dominions, and facilitate the acquisition of 
further territories. Charles the Twelfth, of Sweden, 
conquered Denmark and Poland ; but being no states- 
man, (only a mere soldier,) he lived long enough, 
although he died young, to lose all his conquests, and 
one-half of his hereditary dominions, and the indepen- 
dence of his whole kingdom, which has been, ever since 
his death, in 1718, under the control of Russia or 
France. 

The acquisition of Noteburo;, now Schusselburgh, of 
Nyeskantz, now Petersburgh, and of the islands of Re- 
tusari, now Cronsladt. posts of no consideration to the 



258 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

obtuser vision of the Swedish hero, has secured to Rus- 
gia, for ever, the dominion of the North of Europe, 
whicii IS still more extended and magnified by her later 
acquisitions in Finland and Poland. By the more recent 
accessions of territory in the Crimea, and Georgia, and 
in the possession of Oczakow, Constantinople, Ispahan, 
and Delhi, the capitals of Turkey, Persia, and the 
Great Mogul, are laid open to the arts and arms, the 
legions and the diplomatists of Russia. 

The war, carried on by the Grand Alliance, made 
in 1686, between Germany, Britain, and Holland, against 
France, was one continued series of victory for twenty- 
seven years ; and yet, owing to the unskilful diplomacy 
of England, the peace of Utrecht and Radstadt, in 
1713-14, ruined the house of Austria, the principal 
party in the alliance, subjugated Holland, laid all Ger- 
many open to the inroads of France, placed a French 
monarch upon the Spanish throne, and annihilated the 
influence of Britain upon the continent of Europe. The 
maritime war, carried on by Britain against France, 
from 1759 to 1763, was a train of conquests, as was also 
her land-war in the North-American colonies, during 
the same period. Yet the British were so far out-ma- 
noeuvred by the French negotiators, that the peace of 
1763 laid the foundation of the treaty of 1783, by which 
England was shorn of half her physical strength, and 
all her national honour. 

Had the British diplomatists at Utrecht secured, as 
was then easily to be done, an independent monarchy 
in Spain, and given to the United Provinces of Holland, 
(what, in fact, they did a century after, by the Treaty 
of Paris, in 1814,) a territorial basis, made by a perma- 
nent incorporation of all the Low Countries, then the 
Spanish Netherlands, with the existing Dutch domi- 
nions, the independence of continental Europe probably 
would not have fallen a sacrifice to revolutionary 
France. And, if Biitain, at the peace of 1763, had re- 
tained her conquests, made in the preceding war, she 
might not have been compelled to sign away half her 
empire, by the treaty of 1783; and, still less to ac- 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES 959 

knowledge the paramount superiority of regicide France, 
by the peace of Amiens, in 1802. 

One of the most triumphant issues of French diplo- 
macy, which has already given rise to one war between 
the United States and England, and will probably ere 
long breed occasion for another conflict between these 
two kindred nations, was the originating and establish- 
ing the doctrine of the ^^ armed neutrality i^ a doctrine 
which gradually grew from sufficiently large beginnings 
into the three sweeping propositions which Buonaparte, 
as the French revolutionary chief, and Mr. Madison, as 
oiir American President, laboured to compel England 
to receive as an improvement in the system of interna- 
tional law. These propositions are — First. Free ships 
make free goods. Second. The flag protects the crew. 
Third. No blockade is legal unless a place be invested 
both by sea and land. 

This interpolation of national law has no other ob- 
ject in view than the+Hestruction of the British maritime 
power. If ever acceded to, it will merge all bellige- 
rent rights in neutral pretensions. France, as a great 
land power, wants to annihilate England on the ocean; 
she has never been able to accomplish this purpose by 
fair fighting, in open and honourable warfare ; she, 
therefore, seeks to effect her object by a war in dis- 
guise, which she calls neutrality ; a name that these 
United States readily adopted under the auspices of Mr. 
Jefferson and Mr. Madison, in order to further their 
own peculiar views against Britain, as well as to second 
the designs of revolutionary France. A most unwise 
act on the part of America, because she is ripening fast 
into a first-rate naval power, and is therefore deeply in- 
terested in maintaining belligerent maritime rights. Ex- 
amine for a moment the practical effect of these three 
neutral propositions. Britain and France are at war 
"with each other; America remains neutral: the United 
S^tates carry on all the trade of France, both foreign 
and coasting, in American vessels, under the eyes of 
the English cruisers, who have no power to annoy the 
trade of their enemy, because free ships make free goods. 



260 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

The United States carry a body of French troops from 
the coast of France for the invasion of Ireland, and the 
Britisli cruisers must not touch these precious transports, 
because the flag protects all it covers. The United 
States carry provisions to a French West-India Island, 
w^hich a Britisli squadron is besieging; and, of course, 
the impartial neutral cannot be molested, because no 
place is blockaded, unless it be invested with an ade- 
quate force, both by sea and land. 

No doubt this doctrine is in good odour at the courts 
of America and France, because it gives the united ad- 
vantages of war and peace to France; and to America, 
all the benefits of a war against England, without either 
its expense or danger, Avhile it delivers up the naval 
poAver, the commerce, and the national existence of the 
British empire, an unresisting and helpless victim to 
the combined force and fraud of the United States and 
France. 

The origin and nature of the "V^rst northern armed 
neutrality were forged in the diplomatic arsenals of 
Paris, partly for the purpose of arming the navies of 
Sweden, Denmark, and Holland, as a check upon the 
naval operations of England, and partly to prevent a 
confederacy between Russia and Britain. The imbe- 
cility exhibited by England, in the war that ended in 
the truce of Aix la Chapelle, in 1748, encouraged 
France to form the project of expelling the British from 
North America and the East Indies; to facilitate the 
accomplishment of which objects she endeavoured to 
prevent the co-operation of a Russian fleet with the 
English navy. Accordingly, in 17.')4, the French go- 
vernment proposed to Sweden and Denmark an armed 
naval co7ivention, to protect the trade of the maritime 
States, and maintain the liberty of the Baltic. Little 
notice was taken of diis proposal by Denmark and Swe- 
den, until the events of the war seemed to promise suc- 
cess to France ; when, in IT.OS, in hope of gaining a 
share of whatever commerce or naval influence England 
might lose, they entered into such a convention, under 
the sanction of France and Prussia. But the exploits 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 261 

of the British navy, in 1759, and the succeeding cam- 
paigns, together with the brilHant success of the arms 
of old England and New England against the French 
North American colonies, disconcerted the measures, 
and suspended the effects of this armed neutrality. 

The next disquisition on the mercantile rights of neu- 
tral states was brought forward by Britain herself, on 
some Silesian linen, which her cruisers had captured. 
The whole doctrine of neutral claims was fully and ably 
argued by Lord Mansfield, Sir Dudly Ryder, and Mr. 
Lee, on the part of the British government, in answer 
to the Prussian manifesto, delivered in 1759, by order 
of Frederic the Second. The British High Court of 
Admiralty condemned this Prussian linen, as contraband 
of war, because it was captured on its Avay to France, 
for the supply of her naval canvass. Yet, notwithstand- 
ing the very elaborate and able report of the English 
crown lawyers, the British government finally paid 
Frederic for his cloth, and thus created a precedent, 
upon which were afterward founded the avowed preten- 
sions of the armed neutrality in 1780. England having, 
at the peace of 1763, given up to France nearly all her 
dearly acquired sources of maritime trade, and those 
strong holds in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, 
which would for ever have secured her naval superi- 
ority; the French government, as might be expected, 
soon renewed its former project of confining the British 
empire to the Island of Great-Britain. 

France at that time possessed but little influence in 
the Russian Cabinet, and being still apprehensive of an 
aUiance between Engfland and Russia, in order to raise 
some misunderstanding between the two powers, she 
fawned upon the Empress Catharine, intrigued with her 
favourites, and caressed the ladies of her court. The 
French also wrote verses and sung ballads upon the 
heroism and legislation of Frederic of Prussia, and the 
patriotism and maternal affection of Juliana, Queen of 
Denmark; they likewise, from 1772 to 1778, gave the 
King of Sweden large sums of money to build his de- 
cayed navy ; all which was done, as they said, to secure 



252 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

for continental Europe " the liberty of the seas.'^ The 
unsuccessful campaigns of England in the United States, 
in 1778 and 1779, the accession of Spain and Holland 
to the American cause, together with the retreat of the 
British fleet, even in her own home seas, from before 
the French squadron, under d'Orviliers, seemed again 
to crown the intrigue and perfidy of France with cer- 
tainty of success. All the governments of Europe were 
then convinced that Britain had lost America, and they 
concluded, that her expulsion from the East Indies 
would be the speedy consequence. The entire ruin of 
the British nation was deemed to be certainly approach- 
ing, and the parcelling out of the spoils of her empire, 
became the subject of general discussion among the 
several powers of continental Europe. 

The famous convention of arnied neutrality was, there- 
fore, drawn up and published ; and, in 17K0, acceded to 
by all the maritime states ; even by Turkey and Russia, 
together with Prussia, Sweden, Denmark, France, 
Spain, and Holland ; and in 1781 was acceded to by the 
United States. The Count de Florida Blanca, then 
premier of Spain, at the instigation of France, detained 
all neutral vessels in the Straits, under pretence of the 
blockade of Gibraltar, and answered to the complaints 
of the neutral Ministers at Madrid, that if their sove- 
reijjns would resist the similar claims of England such 
pretensions would be relinquished by Spain. The doc- 
trine of blockade, however, was wo/, at that time, pushed 
to the extent for which the French and American go- 
vernments afterward contended ; namely, that to con- 
stitute a legal blockade a place must be invested with 
an adequate force, both by sea and land, for the only 
thing required by the armed convention of 1780, to 
constitute a blockaded port, was, that there should ac- 
tually be a number of enemy ships stationed near 
enough to make an entry evidently dangerous; and the 
definition in the ordinance of our American Congress, 
in 1781, is to the same cfifect. And, in the convention 
of the Baltic powers, in 1800, signed by Russia, 
Sweden, and Denmark, the definition of blockade is 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 263 

*• where the disposition and number of ships shall be 
such as to render it apparently hazardous to enter." 
This same definition was incorporated into the conven- 
tion between England and Russia, in 1801 ; and the 
principle of that treaty has been recognised in a solemn 
decision of the highest legal tribunal in the State of 
New- York. 

The armed neutrality^ although its avowed pretension 
was the protection of maritime trade and indemnification 
for illegal captures was, in fact, supported by the pre- 
cedent which Britain herself had established in the case 
of the Prussian linen. All states, when once believed to 
be on the decline, like individual merchants, whose cre- 
dit is suspected, must look for a general run or attack 
upon their property. It was so with Sweden, at the 
death of Charles the Twelfth ; with Austria, at the death 
of Charles the Sixth ; with England, on the success of 
the American revolution ; and with France, in the first 
confusion of her revolutionary struggle. To maintain 
the political independence of a nation progression in pow- 
er is necessary. The convention of 1800, between the 
Emperor Paul of Russia and the subordinate powers of 
the North, at the instigation of France, was planned and 
acceded to, upon principles very different from those of 
the former conventions ; it began to assume the mon- 
strous aspect of that new code of neutrality which was 
afterward promulgated by the two Cabinets of St. Cloud 
and Washington. When Catharine broke off the com- 
mercial intercourse between Russia and revolutionary 
France, she signified her motives to Sweden and Den- 
mark, and invited them to follow her example, but ob- 
served that, with the exception of France in its then 
rebellious state, she still adhered to the principles of a 
free neutral trade. 

But England never acknowledged the pretensions of 
the armed neutrality, and persisted, during the first de- 
cade of the French revolutionary war, in capturing all 
neutral vessels employed in illicit commerce with her 
enemies. But the battle of Marengo and treaty of 
Luneville gave France such a decided military and po- 



2Q,j^ RESOURCES CV THE UNITED STATES. 

litlcal ascendency upon the European continent that she 
was enabled, partly by intrigue and partly by menace, 
to induce Paul of Russia, Sweden, Denmark, and Prus- 
sia to unite in getting up a seconr' and an enlarged edi- 
tion of the armed neutrality, v .ii h Nelson committed 
to the flames at Copenhagen, in !u01. After the peace 
of Tilsit, in 1807, Alexander of Russia, in obedience to 
the commands of Buonaparte, again insisted upon en- 
forcing the doctrines of the armed neutrality, to which 
Mr. Canning, on the part of the British government, 
replied (18th December, 1807,) " that the King of Eng- 
land neither understands nor will admit the pretension 
of the Emperor of Russia to dictate the time or mode 
of his negotiations with other powers. It never will be 
endured by his Majesty, that any government shall in- 
demnify itself for the humiliation of serviejicy to France, 
by the adoption of an insulting and peremptory tone 
towards Great Britain. England /?/-oc/aeW awez^ those 
principles of maritime law, against which the armed 
neutrality, under the auspices of the Empress Catharine, 
was originally directed, and against which the present 
hostilities of Russia £ire denounced. Those principles 
have been recognised, and acted upon, in the best pe- 
riods of the history of Europe, and acted upon by no 
power with more strictness and severity than by Rus- 
sia, in the reign of the Empress Catharine. Those 
principles it is the right of England to maintain ; and. 
against every confederacy England is determined, under 
the blessing of Divine Providence, to maintain them. 
They have, at all times contributed essentially to the 
support of the maritime power of Great Britain ; but 
they are become incalculably more valuable and im- 
portant, at a period, when the maritime power of Great 
Bjitain constitutes tlie sole remaining bulwark against 
the overwhelming usurpations of France, the only refuge 
to which other nations may yet resort, in happier times, 
for assistance and protection. 

Nevertheless, France still continued to clamour for 
the liberty of the seas ; and in 1812, Buonaparte under- 
took to establish all neutral claims by the subjugation 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 2G5 

of Russia, in which, however, he did not succeed. In 
the same year, Mr. Madison n'so, as chief of our Ame- 
rican government, undertook, by a war against England, 
to compel her to acknowledge by treaty, the whole of 
the new neutral CoC. ; to wit, that free ships make free 
goods ; the flag protects all it covers : no blockade is 
legal, unless the place be strongly invested by sea and 
land. The war was continued by the United States, for 
nearly three years, when, on the 24th of December, 
1814, a treaty of peace was made with Britain, in 
which no acknowledgment, nor mention of any one o£ 
these neutral claims, was inserted ; that is to say, ac- 
cording to the law of nations, as laid down by Gro- 
tius, Puffendorff, Vattel, and, indeed, by all the great 
publicists, the United States have abandoned these pre- 
tensions : for, whenever a nation goes to war for the 
avowed purpose of obtaining any given object, and 
makes peace without obtaining it; that object is for 
ever waived and relinquished. 

About sixteen or seventeen years since, a little work 
was printed in Holland, said to be the production of the 
late Mr. Windham. It contains some of the most pro- 
found, and comprehensive views of the nature and im- 
portance of diplomacy, together with a full develope- 
ment of the diplomatic policy and career of the diifer- 
ent nations of Europe, more particularly, of France, 
England, and Russia, that have ever been exhibited to 
the world. Every page breathes the energy and wis- 
dom of an accomplished and high-minded statesman. 
Whether or not the book has been republished in Bri- 
tain, or has found its way to these United States I am ig- 
norant. It well deserves to become the manual of every 
political student. Many of the preceding facts and 
observations have been taken from it so far as it reaches; 
namely down to the peace of Amiens, in 1801-2, includ- 
ing the preliminary and definitive treaties. 

The great national importance of estabhshing a sys- 
tem of skilful diplomacy, will be manifest upon consi- 
dering to what extreme peril the ivant of such a system 
i-educed the whole British empire, durins; the second tea 

34 



266 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATED. 

years of the French revohitionarj war. In that awful 
crisis of the world, wlien England alone, single-handed 
maintained the cause of liberty, social virtue, and civil- 
ized enjoyment, against the greater part ol" Europe, and 
its dependencies, moving under the banner of ¥ ranee ; 
even then, the British goverimient did 7wt sufficiently con- 
sider, how they should best play for the few foreign 
stakes yet left in their hands; but most unwittingly 
threw them also into the grasp of their enemy. 

It was incumbent upon England then to alter the ge- 
neral course of her accustomed diplomacy ; and send 
out to other governments, as ambassadors, men of sound, 
strong, comprehensive minds, of discreet habits, and con- 
ciliatory manners; who would always pay a becoming 
deference to the national feelings and prejudices of the 

fDcople among whom they reside; and yet, justly and 
lonourably consult and advance the real, permanent in- 
terests of their own country, in their various diplomatic 
transactions. Above all, it was a matter of deep and 
serious import to England, to keep constantly in these 
United States, a resident minister, able to comprehend 
the interests and relations of the two people, and of suf- 
ficient magnanimity to endeavour to unite them in the 
closest bonds of amity, by promoting those measures of 
policy and commerce, which would redound to their 
mutual advantage ; and thus, by conjoining in the ties 
of friendship, the only two nations on the globe, Avhich 
enjoy popular liberty, and an equitable administration 
of justice, she might, perhaps, have earlier raised an ef- 
fectual barrier against that unrelenting military despo- 
tism, which was for so many years rolling together, as a 
scroll, the republics, kingdoms, and empires of the ci- 
vilized world ; was so long flooding out a tide of deso- 
lation, that having swept away all the ancient bounda- 
ries and land-marks of the fairer and better portions of 
the eartli, then threatened to deluge the remainder with 
the waters of bitterness and death. 

When it is recollected, that ambassadors furnish the 
intelligence, which directs all the movements of their 
respective governments, in relation to foreign powers, 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 267 

perhaps, it will not be thought, that too much stress has 
been, or well can be laid upon the great importance of 
establishing a system of adroit, and able diplomacy. In 
some periods of her history, Britain has seemed sensi- 
ble of this momentous truth. She has availed herself 
of the diplomatic talents of Throgmorton, Temple, 
Marlborough, Walpole, Malmesbury, and Jackson. And, 
if she would oftener have recourse to such negotia- 
tors, she could not be so frequently overseen by France 
in her diplomatic pacifications and treaties ; nor be so 
constantly exposed to the perilous necessity of standing 
alone, against the armed combinations of other powers, 
who are often blinded to their own essential interests, 
and duped into liostiHty against her by the more dex- 
terous diplomacy of her Gallic neighbour. It must not, 
however, be forgotten, that the negotiations of Lord 
Castlereagh, which in 1814 and 1815, gave the Bour- 
bons back to France, and restored peace to Europe, 
may be reckoned among the wisest and most felicitous 
of all the diplomatic transactions, that have occurred in 
the history of the world. 

The character of a nation is to be tried by the same 
test as that of an individual. Whoever produces the 
greatest results with tlie least means, vindicates to him- 
self the most exalted character. Now, Eno^land with 
less physical resources and powers ; that is to say, with 
less extent of home territory, and a smaller population, 
has produced greater national results than France. The 
British Isles cover only a surface of a hundred thousand, 
square miles, and contain only twenty millions of souls ; 
whereas France has a territorial basis of nearly three 
hundred thousand square miles, and a population of 
nearly thirty millions; yet, in all that constitutes perma- 
nent national strength and power; namely, a people 
hardy, brave, active, intelligent, and moral; productive 
industry, commerce, wealth, colonial possessions, all the 
qualities of good domestic government, in peace, in war, 
in high reputation for probity and honour, she is supe- 
rior to France. The uniform testimony of a series oi 
centuries proves, that whenever the British aod French 



268 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

engage in mutual conflict, bj land or on tlic ocean, 
with any thing like a parity of numbers, victory never 
for a moment flutters in suspense, over England's na- 
tional banner. Britain therefore, in spite of tlie inces- 
sant errors of her diplomacy, and her being so often 
out-raanoeuvred by the more dexterous policy of France, 
is, as a nation^ greater than France. 

It is also to be remembered, that, although England 
has never yet been wise enough to retain in peace, a 
sufficient portion of her war conquests, yet she generally 
hokls some portion of them, and very seldom gives up 
any part of her own dominions. Whence, she is ^052- 
iively stronger in territory at the end, than at the begin- 
ning of every war, although relatively to France, she 
does not make herself so strong as she ought. Almost 
the only instance of her giving up any part of her own 
dominions, occurred at the peace of 178.'}, when she 
signed away all that part of America, which constitutes 
the whole of the old United States, and Louisiana, and 
the Floridas. Thus, by continually developing her oAvn 
internal resources of intelligence, policy, trade, agricul- 
ture, and manufactures, England has gradually, in the 
course of ages, grown up into a first rate power, pos- 
sessing, in addition to her home territory and population, 
nearly one-fifth of the whole habitable globe, in colo- 
nial territory, containing more than one hundred millions 
of subjects, spread over the East and West Indies, Eu- 
rope, North America, and Austral- Asia. 

The causes of England's giving up so much of her 
conquests, at the close of every war, and her always 
making such miserable peace negotiations, are to be 
found partly in the nature of her popular government, 
which compels the ministry to conclude a peace on al- 
most any terms, whenever the people headed by the 
opposition in Parliament, become generally clamorous 
against a longer continuance of Avar; and partly from 
the ministry themselves being corrupt, or weak ; corrupt^ 
as at the negotiations of Utrecht, in 1713, when St. 
John, Lord Bolingbroke, and Ilarley, Lord Oxford, sa- 
i'rificcd the best interests of England, betravcd Holland 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 269 

to her ruin, deserted Austria in her hour of need, gave 
Spain to a Bourbon, made France the mistress of Eu- 
rope ; and all for what ? — that a tory French faction 
might domineer over Marlborough, and Godolphin, and 
Somers, and all the disciples of William of Nassau 
Orange, whose wisdom and valour had rescued Europe 
from the iron dominion of Louis the Fourteenth, by 
seven and twenty years of uninterrupted victory ; cor- 
rupt as when, in 1763, Lord Bute and the Duke of 
Bedford, for a beggarly sum of money, paid into their 
own private purse, sold all the conquests of Chatham's 
glorious war, in Asia, Europe, and America, for a peace 
which laid the foundation of the dismemberment of the 
British empire, in 1783; an event which the weakness o( 
Lord North's administration imposed upon Britain; 
weak as when, in 1802, the Addington ministry conclud- 
ed the peace of Amiens, which degraded and weaken- 
ed England, and gave to revolutionary France the domi- 
nion of Europe, and extended her controlling influence 
over the other three quarters of the globe. 

Nevertheless, in spite of these pernicious blunders in 
her diplomatic policy, England has, on the whole, 
averaged an increase of national wealth, strength, and 
power, during the last three centuries, from the reign 
of Elizabeth to the present hour, by acting on fixed 
principles of liberty, industry, enterprise, justice, cou- 
rage, and wisdom. She is in possession now of a very 
large proportion of the commerce of the world ; her 
empire in India is immense beyond a parallel ; she belts 
the globe with her colonial dominion ; she covers Eu- 
rope, and Africa, and Asia, and America, with her in- 
fluence. She has recently rallied the millions of Portu- 
gal, and Spain, and Holland, and Prussia, and Austria, 
and Russia, and Sweden, and Italy, and Germany, 
around her protecting banner, and led them to redemp- 
tion from the most galling military and political bond- 
age that ever bowed the spirit of man to the dust from 
which he sprung. 

In the year 1782, Mr. Jefferson, in his " Notes on 
Virginia," declared, that the sun of Eugland was for 



270 RESOURCES OF THE U.\ITED STATES. 

ever set in darkness and in sorrow, never again to peer 
above the horizon; that she was on the eve of being 
blotted out from the list of nations ; that her liberty and 
glory had departed from her, and taken their flight 
across the Atlantic, to fix their everlasting abode in 
these United States. " Thy heart was father, lliomas, 
to that wish !" But nearly forty years have rolled their 
eventful tide of time, since the sage of 'Vlonticello croak- 
ed, from out his mountain cavern, this ill-omened pro- 
phecy — and the sun of England is not set. Nay, has it 
yet culminated from the equator? Have facts accord- 
ed with the sinister forebodings oftliis inauspicious pro- 
phet ? Since the utterance of this oracular dirge, has 
she not broken down the giant strength of revolutionary 
France ; restored the balance of empire to Europe ; 
given peace to an exhausted world ; and seated herself 
upon an eminence of national glory, that casts into 
shade all the lustre of Greek and Roman fame ? 

There is no subject of pursuit more worthy the atten- 
tion of the moral philosopher and statesman than a sci- 
entific investigation of human laivs, municipal and inter- 
national ; which are, in fact, the historians of the justice 
of mankind; while the relations of political and mi- 
litary events are, for the most part, only the accounts of 
their ambition and violence. What can be more in- 
structive than to trace out the first obscure and scanty 
fountains of that mighty river of jurisprudence, which 
now waters and enriches the many nations of modern 
Christendom with so abundant and fertilizing a flood ? 
to observe the first principles of individual right, and 
national freedom, springing up, amidst the darkness of su- 
perstition and the pollutions of crime, to mark their 
progress, until the lapse of years, and a concurrence of 
lavourable circumstances brightened them into clearness, 
and unfolded them into maturity of strength? What 
more instructive study than to watch the progress of 
the laws, their courses of deflection, of circuit, of ad- 
vance ; sometimes trodden down, and apparently lost 
for ever, amidst the tumult and confusion of domestic 
anarchy and external war; sometimes quite overruled 



liESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 271 

by the hand of municipal power at home ; then victori- 
ous over internal tyranny ; growing, eventually, stronger, 
clearer, and more decisive, by the very violence which 
they have suffered ; more deeply rooted by the fury of 
the tempest, which scattered their topmost branches 
into the air, and covered the ground with their wither- 
ed fohage ; enriched even by the temporary desolation 
of those foreign conquests which menaced their entire 
destruction ; softened by peace, sanctified by religion, 
improved, enlarged, exalted, by commerce, by social 
intercourse, by science, and by erudition ? 

In addition to this course of general inquiry, the 
American student ought to obtain that information 
which results from an analytical investigation of the 
constitutions, statutes, and judicial decisions of the uni- 
ted and separate States; a branch of legal learning the 
more necessary, because the people of this country pos- 
sess the supreme, sovereign power of creating, altering, 
and annihilating, at their own discretion, their respect- 
ive governments, whether State or federal. And, 
therefore, is it peculiarly incumbent on them to acquire 
that legal and political knowledge, which will best 
quahfy them for the judicious exercise of so important a 
privilege, so difficult a duty, so dangerous an experi- 
ment. By carefully examining our different constitu- 
tions, statutes, and judicial decisions ; by comparing 
them together, and, at the same time, referring to the 
various degrees of order and prosperity, the condition 
of society, and the standard of religion and morals, in 
each particular State, an accurate estimate might be 
formed of the relative excellences and defects of the 
different constitutions, and legal codes of the Union; and 
a pathway of light pointed out, by which essential alter- 
ations, and substantial improvements, might be gradu- 
ally introduced into the municipal systems, and political 
fabrics of the respective States, 

Yet, notwithstanding the manifest utility of such in- 
formation, and the advantages to be derived from such 
comparative views, however accurately the constitution 
and laws of any particular State may be known witliin 



272 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

its own limits, tliosc of other States arc very slightly 
studied beyond the boundaries ol" their respective terri- 
tories. There are many able and learned New-York, 
and Massachusetts, and Pennsylvanian, and Virginian 
lawyers; but there are very few ./^mcnc«« lawyers in 
the United States ; that is to say, men acquainted with 
the constitutional, common, and statute laws of the 
several dilTerent States, and of the Union. It is to be 
regretted, that an analytical examination of the munici- 
pal systems of the general and State governments is not 
made a component part of academical instruction in the 
Colleges of the Union. Such an inquiry ought to fol- 
low a regular examination of the institutions of Lycur- 
gus, Solon, and Numa ; and an analysis of the different 
systems of American polity and jurisprudence ought 
to be considered the legitimate sequel of an investiga- 
tion into the merits of the political and legal fabrics ol 
Sparta, Athens, and Rome. 

Some few attempts have been made to establish a 
system of legal instruction in ditlerent parts of the 
Union. For full thirty years past, Mr. Justice Reeve, 
first alone, and latterly in conjunction with Mr. Gould, 
an eminent lawyer and advocate, has been employed in 
delivering an annual course of lectures on the common 
law and on American jurisprudence, in the State o\ 
Connecticut. These lectures have long been justly 
distinguished for their legal precision and learning; and 
have accordingly, for many years past, attracted a great 
number of students from all the different States. 

About twenty-five years since the present Chancellor 
of the State of New-York, as Professor of Law, in Co- 
lumbia College, delivered lectures — the first session, to 
forty students ; the next, to two, and the third, to none, 
when he resigned his chair. It is no little impeachment 
of the good sense of the legal students of this city, that 
they neglected to avail themselves of the opportunity of 
profiting by the instructions of one of the ablest and 
most learned jurists oi" the age in which we live. In 
Virginia, prelections on international law are delivered 
by Mr. Nel.son. one of the district Chancellors of that 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 273 

State, who also fills the chair of municipal law, which 
was once so ably occupied by Mr. Justice Tucker, the 
American annotator upon Judge Blackstone's Commen- 
taries. In Baltimore, Mr. Hotlman delivers lectures on 
law; he has lately published a work, entitled, "A 
Course of Legal Study," which is not only peculiarly 
serviceable to the student, but may be perused with ad- 
vantage by the mature lawyer; with so much talent and 
skill is its various legal learning arranged and exhibited. 

If the several States of Connecticut, Virginia, and 
Maryland afford to their respective students such op- 
portunities of legal instruction, is it not incumbent upon 
the great State of JNew-York, situated at the confluence 
of all the streams of American intelligence and enter- 
prise, as well legal and moral, as commercial and politi- 
cal, to begin to lay the foundations of a general school 
of jurisprudence. 

A difference of opinion exists between some of our 
ablest men in this country, respecting the utility of lec- 
tures ; one party asserting that they convey no Instruc- 
tion, however composed and arranged, while another 
insists, that, if well digested and clearly told, they ma- 
terially aid the progress of the pupil in improvement. 
Lectures, on whatever subject, must indeed, for the 
most part, be only a series of compilations, because no 
one can credXe facts. He can merely collect, by patient 
diligence, the experience and observations of others, 
wheresoever scattered in voluminous records, or floating 
in traditionary forms. To such a collection of mate- 
rials the lecturer must apply the analytical and synthe- 
tical processes of judgment, reasoning, selection, and 
combination, in order to exhibit the soul and spirit of 
the subjects discussed, condensed into plain and practi- 
cal results. This is especially the case with those vi'ho 
undertake to lecture on km ; because no private indi- 
vidual can make law, which is the result of the prac- 
tical experience of the community, embodied into au- 
thority, either by judicial decisions or statutes. The 
teacher can only state the law to be as he finds It, al- 
r-eadv determined or enacted, and thence, by induction, 

35 



274 UKSOLIU.KS OF 11 IE L M TLD STATES. 

derive genoial principles, applicable to similar facts ami 
analogous particulars. 

But it does not therefore follow, that lectures are 
useless. Nor Avill it sullice to say, the student may 
consult the books, and compile a system for himself 
Very few can possess the requisites for such a laborious 
and extensive undertaking^. A great command of 
books, abundant hisure, indefatigable industry, expe- 
rience to know where to search and how to select from 
amidst the vast masses of unconnected particular facts 
and points, are all necessary. Now, young men cannot 
often be cjuaiilied to arrange and mould into shape and 
symmetry the huge chaos of matter that lies floating, 
Avitliout Ibrm and void, amidst the shoreless ocean of the 
law. loung gentlemen, just emancipated from the sa- 
lutary restraints of academical life, are not very likely 
to forego the pleasures incident to that vernal season, 
or exchange the fascinating pursuit of classical studies 
and the belles lettres for the solitary task of endea- 
vouring to thread the mazes of the legal labyrinth, with 
no Ariadne near to furnish a clue by which to guide 
theii- bewildered steps. But, when the preceptor's di- 
ligence has cleaied away the underwood, struck out 
roads, and marked distances through the forest, the 
student will be able to journey on his way with alacrity 
and nnprovement. 

He who does not study at stated times, at)d sys- 
tematically, studies to little purpose ; and it is one great 
benefit of lectures, that thev inculcate the necessity and 
furnish an example of the utility of habitual and sys- 
tematic study, by pointing out the sources of general 
instruction, by jj^iving practical lesults, by exhibiting an 
analysis of what is disorderly and obscure, by dealing 
out legular and periodical information. Besides new 
compilations, in the foiin of lectures, are necessary on a 
subject so complicated, so vohuiiinous, so constantly in- 
creasing in bulk, at) the law must be, from its duty of 
habitually watching over, guiding, protecting, and pu- 
nishing tlie circumstances, words, and actions of human 
bocictv, ever lluctuatinir and \ arious. Succeeding: ajres 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 275 

and multiplied researches produce new varieties of legal 
points and new modifications of the principles of evi- 
dence, which should be arranged and added in a sys- 
tematic form to the existing mass. The evidence, au- 
thority, and proof of law are all of the cumulaiive kind, 
increasing with the increasing age, civilization, growth, 
prosperity, and intelligence of the community. And, 
by adding to the long-established elementary principles 
of jurisprudence the discoveries and improvements of 
each succeeding generation, we improve the proportion 
and beautify the symmetry of the le^al code. 

New compilations, also, are serviceable on all sub- 
jects, admitting improvements and accommodation to 
the passing times, because all men write most success- 
fully and intelligibly for the age in which they live. 
Whatever may be our admiration of the glowing senti- 
ments and splendid eloquence of the great writers of 
antiquity, every day and every hour present our own 
age in aspects and under circumstances, that, for all the 
purposes of practical utility and instruction, chains down 
the mind to the contemplation of the present, and 
causes its existing interests, passions, prejudices, habits, 
evils, conveniences, hopes, and fears, to predominate 
over those of the past ages, which are already mingletl 
with the years beyond the flood. All which applies, 
with peculiar force, to works on law ; because the legal 
code of every nation depends upon the general improve- 
ment of society for its own progression towards perfec- 
tion. In proportion as the science of metaphysics sheds 
its light on the principles of evidence; as history unfolds 
the series of human actions ; as political economy teaches 
the relations between government and people and the 
elements of international law; as moral philosophy ^yo'mts 
out the duties and charities of life, will tlie jurisprudence 
of a country become clear and upright in all its provi- 
sions, a shield to protect the innocent, a sword to punish 
the guilty, the bulwark of individual liberty, of private 
property, and social reputation. 

It is the opinion of some very distinguished writers, 
that the study of the law invariably tends to narrow the 



276 REsoimcEs of the umted states. 

faculties; to diminish, and sharpen into a point of tech- 
nical precision, and formal acuteness, those intellectual 
powers, which under more auspicious circumstances, 
might explore the recondite depths of science, luxuriate 
in the flowerj paths of hterature; or range tliioughout 
the universe, in quest of vast and varied information. 
It is assumed as au unquestionable proposition, that a 
thorough lawyer, is by the very fact oi understanding 
liis own profession well, disqualified from looking up- 
ward and traversing the higher regions of intellect; the 
fields of metaphysical, political, moral, literary, and sci- 
entific investigation. Among these impugners of the 
study of the law, the most conspicuous in modern times, 
arc Mr. Burke, Mr. Canning, and the autlior of the 
Pursuits of Literature ; who enforce their strictures up- 
on its narrowing tendencies, in strains of lofty and im- 
passioned eloquence. 

But Mr. Burke gives up the whole question, when he 
says, " except in persons very happily born.'''' If these 
words mean men of genius, of great native talent, (and 
in their context, they do not admit of any other signifi- 
cation) the charge against the narrowing tendency of 
the study of the law falls to the ground. For no man 
presumes, that the study of the law can "open and libe- 
ralize" minds of merely ordinary capacity ; because no 
kind of study can produce such an elFect. Such minds 
are by their very nature incapable of comprehensive 
enlargement; and therefore, have no business with the 
study of the law, as a science. They may, indeed, and 
often do, pick up an acquaintance with its minuter forms, 
its obscurer details, and its more subordinate technicali- 
ties. But law, in its higher and more legitimate accept- 
ation, is to them for ever as a fountain closed, ancl a 
volume sealed. If the lawc/o open and liberalize minds 
*' happily born," that is to say, minds of great native ca- 
pacity ; then the narrowing tendency is not in the study 
itself, but in the mind of the student, which being by 
nature small and narrow, cannot be dilated, nor stretch- 
ed into magnitude by any Intellectual process ; because 
education can never create any new faculty, nor increase 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 277 

the native power of the understanding; it can only de- 
velope by use and exercise, those talents, whether strong 
and rapid, or slow and weak, whicli God has given to 
men, as the measure of their natural ability. 

Mr. Canning also, yields the force of his objection, 
when he says, " were the study of the law indeed, con- 
ducted as it ought, it might well be considered as a pro- 
per preparation for the duties of a statesman," &c. But 
no rules of fair reasoning, admit of arguing against the 
use of a thing from its abuse. And if a proper mode of 
studying the law will prepare the mind for the enlarged 
horizon of a statesman's view, it cannot be essential to 
the nature of law to narrow the understanding; but the 
charge applies only to an illiberal and unwise method 
of studying it. And such a mode of studying any other 
science, or any department of letters, would narrow the 
mind, and render it bleak and barren. The proper and 
well-directed study of the classics, belles lettres, meta- 
physics, physics, politics, theology, enlarges and 
strengthens the intellect. But the finest capacity would 
become minute and paltry, were it to study any, or all 
of these branches of learning, in the mode so justly re- 
probated by Mr. Canning, namely, " in order to acquire 
a knowledge of forms of an ill-contrived technical jar- 
gon, and of a mass of decisions and regulations, with 
out sufficient attention to the circumstances in which 
they originated, the principles on which they are found- 
ed, or their defects, and possible improvements." The 
law itself, therefore, is free from these objections, which 
can relate only to the improper mode of conducting its 

studv. 

,> 

The author of the " Pursuits of Literature'''' under- 
takes to prove, " that in State affairs all barristers are 
dull;" and yet admits, that the Lords Thurlow and 
i^oughborough Avere great statesmen. But Wedder- 
burne and Thurlow were also eminent lawyers. And 
if the study of the law did not narrow their minds, it 
ran have no natural tendency to produce such an ef- 
fect in any other students. Did the study of law nar- 
row the mind of Bacon, or Hale, or Hardwicke, or 



278 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Mansfield, or Jones, or Hamilton ? The fault then, it' 
fault there be, lies nol in the nature of tlic study, but in 
the mode of studying, or in the mind of the student. 
The tendency of a strong mind is to study law, as well 
as every other branch of intellectual inquiry, on ihe 
broad ground of general principles. To generalize, or 
climb, by an induction from particular facts to general 
results. Lord Bacon calls the proud prerogative of 
genius. But slow and feeble minds have no power to 
make general combinations. Isolated facts lie scattered 
up and down, singly, in their brain, like dry and wither- 
ed sticks, without any bond of connexion, without any 
faculty of reasoning and imagination, to cause them to 
strike root, and branch forth into great and productive 
principles. 

Such men, to be sure, always make formal, minute, 
narrow-minded ca^c-lawyers. Yet it is 7wt the study of 
the law which narrows their intellect ; but their intel- 
lect which narrows the study of the law. Were they 
to pursue any other study than that of law, they 
would still be narrow-minded ; they would, in the ])ur- 
suit of politics, or theology, or medicine, be ca^c-politi- 
cians, ca^c-divines, or ra^e-physicians, because they are 
case-men^ and must necessarily carry the groundwork of 
their nature into whatever calling they follow ; must 
preserve the dowlass texture of their garment, whatever 
of embroidery or ornament they may heap upon it. The 
standard of the Persian monarchs, in their ruder ages, 
was a leathern apron. In after times, the sovereigns 
endeavoured to hide its unseemliness from the view, by 
covering it all over with barbaric pearl and gold ; but it 
still remained, intrinsically, a leathern apron, notwith- 
standing its external pomp. 

The following facts will show that the study of the 
law has no necessary tendency to narrow a strong 
mind. When Lord Thurlow was at the bar, and con- 
sulted on any great question, he used to make himself 
well acquainted with the facts of the case, and meditate 
on them patiently until he reached his result, by fair 
reasoning on the general principles of law, as applied to 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 279 

the question before him. He then repaired to Mr. 
(afterward Lord) Kenyon, the most learned common 
lawyer in Westminster Hall, since Sir Matthew Hale, 
stated to him the facts, and his own results, in order to 
see if his conclusions coincided with the inference of law 
to be drawn from judicial decisions on the same or a 
similar subject. And it almost invariably happened 
that Thurlow's result, derived from general reasoning, 
was in strict accordance with the inference drawn by 
Kenyon, from an examination of decided cases. What 
an eulogium does this fact convey, not only upon the 
comprehensive sagacity and reasoning powers of Lord 
Thurlow, but also on the wisdom and justice of the 
common law ! 

Lord Bacon was a profound lawyer, as sufficiently 
appears by his law-tracts, and more particularly his 
*' Reading on the Statute of Uses." And, whether or 
not the study of the law narrowed his mind, may be 
discovered by examining his " JVovum Organum^'''' and 
his treatise " De Augmentis Scientiarum ;" works in which 
his stupendous intellect, anticipating the age in which 
he lived by at least a thousand years, has laid down 
those universal principles of investigation and reasoning, 
by which alone the mind can successfully regulate its 
search after improvement and truth : 

" Clarum, et venerabile nomen, 



" Gentibus, et nostro multum quod prodidit orbi." 

The denunciations acrainst the narrowins: tendencies 
of the study of the law, pronounced by Mr. Burke, Mr. 
Canning, and the author of the " Pursuits of Litera- 
ture," are to be found in Mr. Burke's speech on Ame- 
rican taxation, delivered in the House of Commons, on 
the l9th of April, 1774; and in an *•*• Answer to an In- 
quiry into the State of the Nation," written in 1806, in 
order to refute the positions of a celebrated pamphlet, 
written conjointly by Mr. Fox and Mr. Brougham. Mr. 
Canning's strictures on the study of the law were called 
forth, by the appointment of i^ord Ellenborough, Chiei' 



2(i0 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES, 

Justice of the King's Bench, to a seat in the executive 
cabinet. " A prefatory Epistle on the Pursuits of Lite- 
rature," is exceedingly severe on all lawyers, and espe- 
cially on Lord (then Mr.) Erskine, for their incompe- 
tency in political affairs. All these performances are 
emblazoned with splendid eloquence, and two of them 
are also enlivened with keen and polished wit; but their 
inferences I hope have been proved to be fallacious. 

It is objected by Mr. Bentham, in his celebrated 
Treatise on Legislation, that the common law of England 
is a'ude and barbarous in its origin, unfit for the present 
advanced stage of civilization, far inferior to the Roman 
or civil law, in comprehensive wisdom, and accuracy of 
detail, and radically defective in not being a written 
code, but merely customary, and growing out of the 
usages and habits of the community. 

The soundness of this assertion, although urged by 
such high authority, is questionable ; for no individual, 
no community can provide for, or foresee the exigencie& 
which are continually arising amidst, the ceaseless fluc- 
tuation of human affairs; and consequently, if there 
were no legal code, save what was tvrittoi, in the shape 
of ordinance, statute, or decree, society would be, at 
once, too much trammelled in its movements, and with- 
out remedy in many emergencies. This is emphatically 
the case in China and Hindostan, whose written codes 
are prodigiously minute in their provisions, watching 
over and regulating all the little details of individual 
pursuit, domestic economy, and social life. Besides, in 
all countries, even the most despotic, a common or cus- 
tomary law prevails, owing to the absolute incompe- 
tence of positive enactments, legislative provisions, and 
executive decrees, to regulate all the concerns of the 
community. Hence, it existed among the nations of 
antiquity, whether free or enslaved, as the Greeks, Per- 
sians, and Romans ; it exists also in the modern world- 
among the bond and free ; among the Hindus, Chinese, 
and Turks, the nations of continental Europe which 
Iiavc adopted llic civil law as the basis of their own 
municipal codes, the French, Germans, Italians, Spa- 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



281 



niards, and Dutch, as well as the English, Irish, and 
Americans, who profess to be governed almost entirely 
by the provisions of the common law. 

This common, or customary law, implies in its very 
name, as springing from the customs and habits of the 
country where it exists, that it is in a state of perpetual 
change ; since the customs and habits of a people, more 
especially if free to follow their own inclinations, are 
perpetually changing. A common law prevails in all 
nations, but most in free communities, because in them 
the greatest respect is paid to the feelings, habits, man-- 
ners, and customs of the people. It is impossible, by 
statute^ to provide for every particular case that may 
arise amidst the various modifications of which proper- 
ty is susceptible, the diversity of relations in civil life, 
the many possible combinations of events and circum- 
stances which elude the power of enumeration, and 
mock the reach of all human foresight 

But whatever is not written is common law , and, ac- 
cordingly, in every country pretending to any adminis- 
tration of justice, it has been found expedient to entrust 
the judges with the power of deducing from the more 
general propositions of law, and from the habits and 
customs, sanctioned by usage, such practical corollaries 
as may most conduce to the furtherance of justice. De- 
Auctions thus formed and estabhshed, in the adjudica- 
tion of particular causes, become part of the text or 
body of the municipal law. Succeeding judges receive 
them as such, and generally consider themselves as much 
bound by them as by the provisions of statute law. 
Thus grows up, gradually, a body of common or cus- 
tomary law. Cicero, in his " OratoricB Partitiones,^'' ex- 
pressly asserts, that in every country two sorts of law 
prevail ; one written, the other not written, but spring- 
mg up, either from the rights of nations, or the munici- 
pal customs of their ancestors. Rome and England, 
under their mixed governments, the one inclining to 
democracy in its later stages, the other pretty equal- 
ly poised by the conflicting forces of monarchy, aristo- 
cracy, ajid democracy, have been the greatest legisla- 
te 



282 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

tors recorded in history. Rome has left the foundation, 
and great part of the superstructure, of lier civil code, 
to the whole European continent — to Scotland, to the 
colonies of France, Spain, Holland, Sweden, and Den- 
mark. England has, in her own island, carried the au- 
thority and government of law to a very high eminence 
of perfection ; and has transmitted her municipal code 
to Ireland, to her European, African, Asiatic, and Ame* 
rican colonies, and to these United States. 

Under both the Roman and English establishments, 
the common law or known customs, and the practice 
and decisions of courts, acquired equal authority with 
positive statutes. Effectual precautions were taken for 
the impartial application of general rules to particular 
cases ; and a surprising coincidence exists in the modes 
of jurisdiction, adopted by these two nations. In both 
countries the people reserved to themselves the o/llce of 
judgment, and brought the decision of civil rights and 
criminal questions to the tribunal of peers, or a jury, 
who, in judging their fellow-citizens, prescribed a con- 
dition of life for themselves. Nay, the term common 
law, as well as the thing itself, is not confined to the 
law of England. Sir Heneage Finch, afterward Lord 
Nottingham, one of the ablest of a very long hst of able 
English Chancellors, says, " that it is not a word new, 
nor strange, nor barbarous, nor proper only to England, 
but is common to other countries also.*' Euripides, 
more than once, makes mention of the common laws of 
Greece; and Plato, in his Treatise on a republic, de- 
fines the common law to be " that which is first taken 
up by the common consent and usage of a country, and 
afterward sanctioned by judicial decisions; he also 
calls it ••' the golden and sacred rule of reason ;" a 
phrase borrowed by Lord Coke, when he said, ••' that 
common law was nothing else but riiiht reason ;" mean- 
I'lg, doubtless, that refined reason, the offspring of ex- 
perience and wisdom, whose authority is generally 
obeyed by the consent of all. 

The common law is peculiarly favourable to the 
growth and maintenance of libcrfi/, both personal and 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 28$ 

political, because it cherishes and establishes those 
usages and customs of the people, which experience has 
proved to be practically beneficial ; whereas, written 
law is unfavourable to freedom, by fettering the move- 
ments of social action ; and by leaving no room for the 
growth of popular habits and customs. Hence the 
common law prevails most in the freest countries, whdse 
freedom it continually augments ; for example, it bears 
greater sway in England, and in the United States, than 
in any other country ; because they are the most essen- 
tially free, and substantially civilized, of all nations, an- 
cient or modern. The distingfuishins: characteristic of 
the common law is its elastic energy, accommodated to 
all social exigencies ; alike fitted to direct and regulate 
the tender infancy, the aspiring youth, the matured 
manhood, and the venerable age of nations. Whence, 
its limits are in continual progression ; as new exigen- 
cies arise in the community, and consequently new com- 
binations and applications of common law principles 
are necessary. And, as the English and American 
judges, following the light of Lord Mansfield's great 
example, embrace the general principles of jurispru- 
dence, the common law will travel over the dominions 
of equity ; and that which is merely equity now, will in 
the lapse of half a century, be established common law 
decision and practice. Within the last fifty years, the 
common law has embraced a considerable portion of 
equity jurisdiction. 

In England, the common law has grown with tlic 
growth of the nation, in arts, and arms, in religion, mo- 
rals, science, Hterature, and civilization. The English 
common law was rude and scanty in its origin ; contain- 
ing a few imperfect regulations, respecting person and 
property, under the Anglo-Saxon and Danish dynasties; 
at the Norman conquest it embraced the feudal law, in 
relation to real property ; afterward it incorporated the 
civil law, with regard to personal property. In the pro- 
gress of its growth, it received within its capacious bo- 
som the commercial law ; and lastly, has girded within 
its immeasurable belt, the whole system of international 



I 



284 RESOimCES OF THE VIVITED STATES. 

law, which connects together in the bonds of social in> 
tercourse all the inhabitants of the civilized world. 
The criminal law of England is in part Saxon, Danish, 
and Norman, much modified by subsequent statutes. 
The European codes generally are similar in their ori- 
in, and in much of their progress. Thus the English, 
Velsh, Scottish, French, Italian, Spanish, German, Da- 
nish, and Swedish codes, reflect mutual light upon each 
other, in all the essential points of their respective iuri- 
dical systems. This is so much the case between those 
of France and England, that the best illustrations of the 
ancient French code are to be found in the earlier law 
writers of England; and the best commentary upon the 
old English law, exists in the writings of the elder French 
jurists. 

Some of the most distinguished of our American ju- 
rists, are divided in opinion, respecting the introduction 
of the common law of England into, and its authority 
within, the United States. On one side, it is contended 
that the English common law is the unwritten law of 
the United States, in their national or federal capacity; 
and that the common law of the separate States remains 
the same as before the revolution. While on the other 
side, it is urged, that no common law exists in the courts 
of the United States, but their whole range is confined 
to taking cognizance of, and expounding tlie American 
Constitutions, the acts of Congress, and treaties between 
the United States and foreign powers. It is, however, 
admitted on all sides, that the common law of England, 
as it existed on the breaking out of the revolution, has 
been incorporated into all the separate States, as the ba- 
sis of their municipal law ; subject, of course, to the con- 
trol and modification of legislative provisions. 

Some of the principal diff'erences, at present existing 
between the American and English law, are, that our 
municipal code tends to scatter real property, at the 
death of every head of a family, whereas that of Eng- 
land, by the common law of descent, the statute of en- 
tails, and the custom of strict marriage settlements, 
tends to accumulate and perpetuate family property- 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 283 

In the distribution of personal property, the American 
follows the English, which is derived from the civil law. 
Our criminal code is much milder than that of England, 
which is too severe, and encourages crime, bj the uncer' 
tainty of punishment ; while we augment crime by the 
inadequacy of punishment to such a degree, as to keep 
our state-prisons generally full, besides a continually in- 
creasing body of pardoned criminals, let loose to prey 
upon the public. The courts of the United States, al- 
though they disavow any binding authority in the Eng- 
lish common law upon them, yet in fact expound their 
legal questions, whether civil or criminal, upon common 
law principles. 

Upon the whole, then, the best groundwork for the 
earlier studies of the English and American jurists, is 
to be found in the diligent perusal of Judge Blackstone's 

commentaries, as containino; an admirable outline of 

111"* 
English law, both civil and criminal ; and then the msti- 

tutes of Justinian, because the legal provisions respect- 
ing personal property, both here and in England, are 
almost entirely derived from the Roman code. The 
late General Hamilton used to say, that he had learned 
more of the elements and principles of jurisprudence, 
as a science, from the study of this, than of any other 
work. Next in order, should be read the Book of 
Feuds, because the English law of real property is de- 
rived from the feudal system, and that of America, (with 
some statute modifications) from the English law. Then 
Beawes's Lex Mercatoria will give an acquaintance 
with commercial law, as an essential part of the com- 
mon law; and Vattel presents a brief outline of the 
law of nations, which also constitutes an integral por- 
tion of the common law. A work on national law, em- 
bracing the questions decided since the time of Vattel, 
is much wanted. At present, only a few miscellaneous 
observations can be made on some of the defects in our 
juridical system, which have been partly borrowed from 
England, and are in part weeds of our own growth. 

In England, individual subjects, to whom the sove- 
reign is indebted, have a remedy in the King's own 



286 RESOURCES or the united states. 

courts, by a petition of right ; whereas, in the United, 
and separate States, every part of the Enghsh common 
law relating to the sovereign, was aboHshed by the re- 
volution, which fixed the sovereignty in the American 
people. And our courts only possess so much judicial 
power, as is given by Constitution and statute, neither 
of which gives an action at the suit of an individual 
against a State, or against the United States. Whence 
a creditor, whether of a separate State, or of the United 
States, has no other remedy, than to petition the legis- 
lature to make a money appropriation to the amount of 
the debt due to him ; which is a very precarious reme- 
dy, as appears from the fate of so many petitions to 
Congress, and the State legislatures, by claimants on 
the score of revolutionary services, during that war 
which gave national independence and sovereignty to 
the United States. There is no legal mode of compel- 
ling any one of our States to pay its just debts, whether 
due to its own citizens, or the citizens of other States, 
or the subjects of a foreign sovereign. Nay, if a State 
violates a treaty or an act oi" Congress, or any of the 
provisions of the Federal Constitution ; there is no le- 
gal remedy, because the separate States are not amen- 
able to the judicial authority of the United States. 

The laws in this country generally favour the debtor 
at the expense of the creditor, and so far encourage 
dishonesty. The number of insolvents, in every State, 
is prodigious, and continually increasing. They very 
seldom pay any part of tlieir debts, but get discharged 
by the State insolvent acts with great facihty, and se- 
crete what property they please for their own use, 
without the creditor's being able to touch a single stiver. 
There is no bankrupt law in tlie United States, and no 
appeal in these matters from the State to the Federal 
courts; whence, in every State, the insolvent acts ope- 
rate as a general jail delivery of all debtors, and a per- 
manent scneme, by which creditors are defrauded of 
their property. The British merchants and manufac- 
turers who have trusted our people, doubtless under- 
•stand this. 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 287 

Throughout the separate States, whatever may be 
the mode of appointing or the official tenure of the 
superior judges, the justices and judges of the common 
pleas and other inferior courts are generally appointed 
during pleasure, and receive their income from the fees 
of office ; whence litigation is grievously encouraged 
among the poorer classes of the community, and a hor- 
rible perversion of justice corrupts the whole body of 
the commonwealth. 

The United and separate States have transcribed 
into their statute book the English laws against usury. 
All the best pohtical philosophers unite in condemning 
any legislative interference with the rate of interest for 
the use of money; see Dr. Adam Smith, Mr. Hume, 
Sir James Stuart, and particularly Mr. Bentham, who 
demonstrates the absurdity and mischief of all usury 
laws most conclusively and forcibly. A single fact is 
sufficient to prove their inutility and folly ; namely, that 
the legal always differs from the market rate of interest. 
In countries abounding with capital, the legal is above, 
in those deficient in capital it is below the market 
price. For example, in England, at this moment, the 
legal rate of interest is five per cent., the market price 
only three ; in the United States the average legal rate 
is six per cent., and the market price varies from ten to 
twenty per cent., according to the rapacity of the lender, 
and the exigency of the borrower. In Hamburgh, Avhere 
there is no usury law, the rate of interest is lower, in 
proportion to its capital, than if such law existed, be- 
cause no premium is required for breaking it. 

Some of our States, particularly that of New- York, 
have borrowed the English system o{ poor laws. Now, 
Avhether we adopt the theory of population laid down 
by Mr. Malthus, or that more recently urged by Mr. 
Wieland, both of whom exhibit great talent, and a most 
instructive display of facts in support of their respective 
propositions, we must be compelled to admit, that the 
poor laws of England are an awful evil to that country; 
that they increase the indigence which they profess to 
relieve, and enormously augment the vice, misery, and 



288 RESOURCES OF TflE UNITED STATES. 

degradation of the great mass of the Englisli people. 
Whoever wishes to see the details upon this subject, 
may consult the discussions in the House of Commons, 
and the Reports on Mendicity, lately published in Lon- 
don; and the causes of the system producing such per- 
nicious effects are unfolded with great force and clear- 
ness by Mr. Malthus, in his Essay on Population. 

As yet, on account of their extensive territory, com- 
paratively thin population, high wages of labour, abun- 
dance of employment and sustenance, the United States 
do not suffer so much from the system of poor laws 
as England. But, as far as they go, they produce sub- 
stantial evil unmingled with any good. In this city of 
New- York, for instance, it appears, from a memorial 
addressed to our State legislature, in the montli of 
March, 1817, that, during the last winter, fifteen thou- 
sand paupers, that is to say, about a seventh of our whole 
population, received alms. For several years past the 
numbers of our poor have been increasing, and have 
been attended with a corresponding augmentation of 
profligacy and crime. When the Superintendants of 
the New-York Sunday School Union Society, in the 
spring of 1816, first engaged in their labours of love, to 
reclaim the children of poverty, idleness, and vice, from 
the error of their waj's to the wisdom of the just, they 
found the streets of the city and the habitations of the 
poor one living spectacle of intoxication. They were 
shocked lo see the squalid misery, the loathsome dis- 
ease, and still more loathsome moral deformity of infan- 
cy, youth, manhood, and age ; all occasioned by the 
liabitual use of ardent spirits among the poor, without 
distinction of sex or years. It is but llic tribute of jus- 
tice to the merits of those estimable men, to declare, 
that their remonstrances and efforts in the sacred cause 
which they have espoused with so much zeal, charity, 
wisdom, and perseverance, have somewhat diminished 
this horrible vice, as well as lessened the profanation of 
the Sabbath. 

It is surely needless to expatiate on a fact established 
by the experience of all history ; namely, that whenever 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 289 

the lower orders of the community are generally cor- 
rupted in their morals, the death warrant of their civil 
and religious liberties is already signed. And, if such 
an event has uniformly taken place in the governments 
of the old world, where the people are not suffered to 
exercise any great share of political power, or enjoy any* 
great portion of political rights and privileges, how much 
more certain and speedy must be the desolation in the 
United States, all of whose governments have their 
foundations laid broad and deep in the popular sove- 
reignty, and all of whose institutions rest, ultimately, 
upon the basis of popular opinion ? It requires no pro- 
phetic inspiration to foretell the rapid dissolution of a 
government, planted in the soil of universal suffrage, 
when once its electors have become deaf to the calls of 
duty by the long-continued habit of iniquity, and when 
the mere sale of their votes to the highest bidder may 
be considered as one of the least dark in the lona: cata- 
loffue of their accustomed crimes. 

The chief cause of the degradation and misery of our 
paupers, doubtless, is to be found in that system of poor 
laws which we have faithfully transcribed from the 
English statute book into our own legal code — a sys- 
tem by which the English poor have been materially 
injured in their morals, their habits of industry, their 
sense of character, in all that contributes to give 
strength and permanency to national prosperity ; a sys- 
tem first adopted in the reign of Elizabeth, and since 
that time swollen, by successive statutes and innumera- 
ble judicial decisions, into a voluminous and frightful 
code. The same causes invariably produce the same 
effects, when applied to the same circumstances ; and 
therefore, although at present owing to our thin po- 
pulation, abundance of Avages, provisions, and work, 
and the small public expenditure, the burden of the 
poor rates does not press with so very alarming a 
weight, yet it is an evil in perpetual progression, and 
will continue to eat into and gangrene the life organs 
of the commonwealth, precisely in proportion as the 
people shall continue to augment in number, and agri- 

37 



290 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

culture, trade, and manufactures continue to swell the 
tide of individual wealth. Such has been the progress 
of this system in England, and such must be its course 
in the United States, unless the legislature, in its wis- 
dom and mercy, see fit to annihilate or alter the whole 
code of poor laws. 

Man is by nature an idle animal; and generally speak- 
ing, shrinks from labour, unless impelled by necessity. 
But the poor law system takes away this universal im- 
pulse to industry, by relieving all the needy that apply 
for help ; thus, in fact, encouraging that very idleness, 
"which is the original and hereditary sin of our common 
nature. Nor is idleness ever a solitary vice; it leads 
almost of necessity its votaries to intemperance, fraud, 
theft, and those still more atrocious crimes, which shake 
the foundations of human society. The Spanish pro- 
verb is, " the devil tempts other people, but idle people 
tempt the devil." If the Spaniards would profit by the 
good sense of their own proverb, they would soon ex- 
hibit a beautiful and splendid contrast to the midnight 
darkness oi sloth and slavery^ which now enshrouds their 
religious sentiments, their political opinions, their public 
liberty, their individual enterprise. The legislature of 
this country, and more particularly of our own State, 
is called upon by the voice of duty, as they regard the 
welfare of the people committed to their charge, to 
check the growth of an evil, whose unchecked progress, 
must eventually convert the great mass of our commu- 
nity into idle, intemperate, profligate beings ; and through 
their instrumentality^ consign our civil and religious liber- 
ties, our political and social institutions, the pride and 
ornament of an enlightened age ; our private consola- 
tions, and public defences ; the incentives to exertion, 
the light of hope, and the love of fife, to the silence and 
fofgetfulness of the sepulchre. 

I cannot close this very shght summary of a few of 
the defects of our legal system, without noticing the ra- 
dically imperfect organization of our New-York court oj 
errors., which cannot be done better than in the words 
of Mr. Piatt, now one of the judges of our supreme 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STAxfes. 291 

court, but sitting as a Senator of our State, when he 
made the following observations, respecting our highest 
judicial tribunal. 

The New-York State Constitution provides, that a 
court for the trial of impeachments, and correction of 
errors, shall consist of the President of the Senate, the 
Senators, Chancellor, and Judges of the supreme court, 
or the majority of them. "I cannot admit," says Mr. 
Justice Piatt, " the doctrine of immutability in the de- 
cisions of this court, to the unqualified extent claimed 
by the plaintiff's counsel. The decisions of courts are 
not the law, but only evidence of law. And this evidence 
is stronger or weaker, according to the number and 
uniformity of adjudications, the unanimity or dissension 
of the judges, the solidity of the reasons on which the 
decisions are founded, and the perspicuity and precision 
with which those reasons are expressed. The weight 
and authority of judicial decisions, depend also on the 
character and temper of the times in which they are 
pronounced. An adjudication at a moment, when tur- 
bulent passions, or revolutionary phrensies prevail, de- 
serves much less respect, than if it were made at a sea- 
son propitious to impartial inquiry and calm deliberation. 
The peculiar organization and practice of this court, 
render it difficult to establish a system of precedents. 
In the Supreme Court, the judges confer together, com- 
pare opinions, weigh each other's reasons, and elicit 
light from each other. If they agree, one is usually de- 
legated by the others, not only to pronounce judgment, 
but to assign reasons for the whole bench. But even 
in that court, and in the courts of Westminster-Hall, 
the judges who silently acquiesce in the result, do not 
consider themselves bound to recognize as law, all the 
dicta of the judge who delivers the opinion of the court. 
In this Court of Errors, the members never hold any 
previous consultation together; we vote for the most 
part, as in our legislative capacity. Few assign any 
reasons, and fewer still give written opinions, which may 
be reported. For these reasons, I think it would be 
extravagant and dangerous to consider the dicta and 



292 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

opinions of a single member, as settling; definitively the 
law of the land, on all the points on which he chooses to 
give opinions, or to assign reasons." 

The House of Lords, in England, in relation to its 
Deing the highest legal tribunal in the empire, is liable 
to nearly the same objections which Mr. Justice Piatt 
urges against the Court of Errors, in this State. But 
in England, on every question of law, the peers, both 
clerical and lay, are in the habit of trusting implicitly to 
the opinions of the twelve judges ; whereas, in New- 
York, our judges have not always the weight in the de- 
cisions of the Court of Errors Avhich their acknowledg- 
ed talents and learning ought, in all places, to command. 
It would be exceedingly beneficial to this State, if a 
convention of the people were called, for the purpose 
of altering the Constitution, at least in three particulars; 
namely, constituting a Court of Errors entirely of legal 
characters ; abolishing the limitation as to age, in the 
official tenure of our judges; and annihilating the Coun- 
cil of Appointment, that our Governor might be a single, 
responsible, executive magistrate. 

It is a common complaint, that the American bar is 
overstocked. With what ? — with talent and learning ? 
This, I believe, is not asserted, and would be difficult to 
demonstrate ; since no community, in whole or in part, 
can be so overstocked, because native talent '\^ a plant 
of rare growth, and still rarer cultivation, in every age 
and country. But our bar is overstocked with numbers. 
Grant the fact, and ask if talent and learning have any 
thing to fear from unnumbered combinations of dulness 
and ignorance. Can mere numbers of persons, who 
either neglect to exercise their understandings, or who 
have no minds to exercise, stop the progress of the 
combined force of talent, industry, and learning, in a 
profession where success so mainly depends upon the 
public display of genius and knowledge f Did the 
shades of Tartarus, the unsubstantial forms that hover- 
ed round his path, impede for a moment the march of 
iEneas onward to Elysium ^ 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 293 

Whether or not our bar be overstocked with num- 
bers, I am ignorant, having no data on which to calcu- 
late with any degree of certainty and precision, if the 
annual increase of lawyers averages a greater propor- 
tion than it ought to bear to the yearly augmentation of 
wealth and population in the United States. But if the 
bar be, at present, overstocked with numbers, it is of no 
importance. It is merely a local and temporary incon- 
venience, which, when left to itself, will soon find its 
own remedy. For the quantity of every commodity 
always suits itself, ultimately, to the effectual demand 
of the existing market. Apply this doctrine to the law, 
and lawyers, and there need be no alarm as to the con- 
sequences of an excessive influx of students. If the bar 
be understocked, the practice of its members will be 
so abundant and lucrative, as to offer a high bounty for 
an immediate supply of new recruits. If it be over- 
stocked, the practice will be so monopolized by its abler 
^ons, as to speak to the less efficient barristers in the 
very intelligible language of nakedness and hunger, that 
the bar is no place for them ; that it opens no market 
for the vent of their wares ; that its cardinal pillars are 
not ignorance and idleness ; that its walls are not to be 
buttressed up by dulness and impudence ; and that they, 
therefore, must betake themselves to some employ- 
ment more congenial to their nature and acquisitions, 
than a calling which requires the combination of na- 
tive talent, with patient and persevering industry. 

At all events, talent and industry need never be 
terrified from the pursuits of law ; since, by the very na- 
ture and condition of men and things, there never can be an 
overstock of diligence and capacity upon the face of the 
earth ; and since they, when directed by prudence and 
discretion, cannot fall of commanding success and honour 
m every walk of life, and in none more certainly and 
more splendidly than the bar. Whichever political party 
be uppermost In the United States, the lawyers govern 
the country: they possess more influence, and exercise 
more power than any other power; they are emphati- 
cally the men of business, and as we have no separate 



294 RESOURCES OF THE UMlTEl) STATES. 

corps of professional politicians, they engross nearly all 
the high oiTices of state, whether at home or abroad. 
With the exception of General Washington, every Pre- 
sident of the United States has been a lawyer; and, 
without any exception, all our ablest diplomatists have 
been selected from the same profession. 

The American bar always commands a full share of 
the great talent of the country; indeed, it ought and it 
docs exhibit, in proportion to our whole population, as 
compared with that of the British isles, a larger aggre- 
gate display of intellect than is manifested by that of 
the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. 
For, in the United States, there is no other general out- 
let for the first-rate talent than the profession of the 
law. The nature of their political institutions forbids 
any hope of their statesmen ever acquiring any perma- 
nent power or extensive wealth and influence in the 
community, and, consequently, offers no adequate in- 
ducement for the primary talents of the country to de- 
vote themselves exclusively to a life of politics ; whence 
the state seldom or never commands for her permanent 
service the first-rate abilities of her children. The pul- 
pits of America are not sufficiently cherished by the 
national or State governments, nor sufficiently encou- 
rao^ed by public opinion, nor remunerated by a suffi- 
ciently ample compensation, to offer an adequate bounty 
to the highest order of talent. The navy and army of 
the United States have not yet grown up to a sufficient 
size and extent to vindicate to themselves the employ- 
ment of any very great proportion of the first rank of 
American genius. These two illustrious professions 
must experience many years of much more active and 
comprehensive service than they have ever yet seen, 
before they can allure to their paths of peril and glory 
their due proportion of the dominant mind of their 
country. 

And in no community has trade or manufacture, the 
plough or the loom, taken to itself, permanently^ the ex- 
ertions of very commanding abilities. If time and 
chance cast primary native genius into either of these 



"RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATE§i 293 

occupations, after a few desperate struggles of agony it 
either seeks refuge in the tomb, or, bursting asunder the 
bonds of its condition, springs upward into a region of 
intellect more fitted to its inclination and capacity. 
The bar then is the great, the almost only repository of 
all the highest talents produced and reared in these 
United States. And the primary native genius of this 
extensive country, throughout all its separate State 
sovereignties, rushes onward to the legal standard, as 
offering the highest inducements of reputation, wealth, 
influence, authority, and power, that the commonwealth, 
in its present circumstances, can give. 

But in Britain, her political institutions, her local si- 
tuation, the circumstances of Europe, the condition of 
the whole world during the last fifty years, have all 
conspired to force her primary talents into the service 
of her parliament, her executive cabinet, her army, 
navy, church, colonial governments, and diplomatic 
squadrons ; while her bar has been left to explore the 
mazy labyrinths of jurisprudence by the feebler lights 
of secondary minds. The time has been, indeed, when 
she availed herself of her first-rate capacities in the la- 
bours of the law. She has seen Bacon, and Hale, and 
Hardwicke, and Mansfield, strengthen, illumine, and 
dignify her seats of justice. But that was a period 
when these great master-spirits were wanted to build 
up and cope in, to the fulness of perfection, her juridical 
system; to reduce the decisions of her various courts of 
equity and law to one uniform level of wisdom, justice, 
and certainty throughout all the reach of her extended 
empire. It was also, at a time, when her political cir- 
. cumstances permitted her to spare a large portion of 
her primary talent to rear the infancy and establish the 
manhood of her legal system. 

But for the last fifty years, including the two great 
revolutions of America and France, so severe and un- 
remitting has been the political pressure of England, 
that she has been compelled to pour out nearly all her 
first-rate intellect over the whole of her extensive do- 
minions, in her naval, military, and civil departments. 



296 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

And consequently, as primary taknt is never profusely 
dispensed in any age or country, she has been scarcely 
able to spare any of it permanently to the service of the 
bar; but the moment she has discovered it to have acci- 
dentally strayed into the precincts of the forum, she has 
immediately called it thence into the upper regions of 
the State; as she did her Burke, her Pitt, her Gren- 
ville, her Canning, and her Brougham. Whence as 
native genius is equally distributed over all the nations 
and sections of the earth, and differs only in different 
countries, in its developement and display, according to 
the circumstances in which it is placed ; and as the 
American bar employs the first-rate talent of the United 
States, and the British bar uses only the secondary ca- 
pacities of Britain, it follows, that the American bar 
must average a greater intellectual power, than is exhi- 
bited in the British forum; which is undoubtedly the fact ^ 
more especially in extemporaneous public speaking. 

The author of " inchiquin, a Jesuit's Letters," makes 
some spirited and eloquent observations on the compa- 
rative merits of American and British oratory, and gives 
a decided preference to that of the United States, par- 
ticularly in forensic speaking. He allows the English 
to be good reasoners, chaste writers, and classical scho- 
lars, but by no means equal to the Americans in extem- 
poraneous elocution. The English pulpit^ he says, 
13 learned, didactic, phlegmatic, and never eloquent; 
the English bai\ addicted to a bad style, and ungraceful 
elocution ; and in Parliament, sober reasoning prevails 
over imagination and rhetoric. Chatham and Burke, he 
allows, and Sheridan he is inclined to admit, as orators; 
but they are the only orators which Britain has produ- 
ced. The few others who were eminent, for instance, 
Pitt and Fox, were nothing more than adroit debaters; 
and the great body of public speakers in parliament, at 
the bar, and fiom the pulpit, with great good sense, 
and extensive acquirements, are deficient in all the pro- 
perties of eloquence. To Ireland the palm of modern 
oratory is awarded, and Burke, Sheridan, Curran, and 
Grattan, held up as bright examples. A doubt is ex- 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 297 

pressed, if the United States have yet produced a Chat- 
ham, or a Burke ; and an opinion declared that our best 
speakers want the finish of oratory ; but it is confidently 
asserted, that the Americans surpass all other nations in 
aptitude for pubhc speaking, and in flights of bold, vit>;o- 
rous, and beautiful eloquence. In their public bodies, 
in Con-^ress, the State assemblies, the bar of the seve- 
ral States, and their numerous political and academic 
associations, there is a much greater number of agree- 
able speakers, than in the similar assemblies of Great 
Britain. 

These observations of Inchiquin have been conden- 
sed for the sake of brevity, but the whole substance is 
preserved, and the reader is recommended to peruse the 
original, which abounds in spirited eloquence, and pow- 
erful efforts to vindicate the literary and national charac- 
ter of the United States, from the aspersions so liberally 
bestowed upon them by Europeans. The preceding 
observations of Inchiquin, however, require a little mo- 
dification. It appears somewhat sublimated, to exalt 
the public speaking in Congress, and the several State 
legislatures, so far above that of the British Senate ; 
whose superior eloquence is almost necessarily implied 
in the fact, that the first-rate talent of England, con- 
stantly directs and adorns her parliament; whereas, the 
primary capacity of the United States, too seldom finds 
its way into Congress and the State legislatures, owing 
to the causes already mentioned, and also to the consti- 
tutional exclusion of all office-holders from a legislative 
seat. And it must always be pretty much a matter of 
course, for the ablest men of every dominant party to 
lay their own hands upon, and place under their own 
immediate guidance and control, the great offices of the 
executive government. Whence, consequently, in the 
ordinary current of events, only the eloquence of the 
secondary men of that prevailing party at least, can be 
heard on the deliberative floor, whether of Congress, 
or of the twenty separate State legislatures. 

It is rather extraordinary that Inchiquin should deny 
the meed of eloquence to Pitt and Fox; and consider 

38 



298 llESOURCES OF THE t'NITED STATED. 

them, in common with other parliamentary speakers^ 
only as " adroit debaters." Nor is it less surprising to 
assert, that "there are no orators now in the British 
Senate." What possible definition of an orator can be 

fiven that shall exclude the names of Canning, Wellesley, 
I'Intosh, Grenvillc, Grey, Brougham, Lansdowne, 
Peel, and many others ? 

The pulpit of Britain, it must be confessed, is almost 
entirely destitute of pure eloquence, the poetic part of 
oratory, ardour of imagination, richness of sentiment, 
energetic and Splendid expression. In speaking of the 
sermons of England, reference is chiefly made to writ- 
ten discourses, because her extemporaneous preachers 
generally lose as much in elegance and connexion as 
they gain in vivacity apd vigour; on account of their 
too little previous preparation for their pulpit exercises. 
The sermons of England are generally characterized by 
purity of style, correct and luminous reasoning, simple 
and temperate elegance. But they seldom, if ever, aim 
at exciting or controlling the great master-passions of the 
heart; nor do they often reach the higher flights of that 
eloquence, which, by producing strong and permanent 
emotions, triumphs over the judgment, and chains cap- 
tive the will of the audience. 

It must also be acknowledged, that the British bar 
generally pleads guilty to the charge urged against it, 
so severely and peremptorily by the Jesuit. Yet, with- 
in the memory of man, that bar has been led by Mans- 
field, Thurlow, and Wedderburne, three illustrious 
lawyers, who were equalled by few, and surpassed by 
none in compass and variety of wisdom and eloquence. 
And even noii\ in her day of secondary lawyers, the 
honour of her bar has been conducted to perfection by 
Lord Erskine''s felicitous combination of profound legal 
reasoning, with splendid eloquence. Perhaps, it is not 
going too far to say, that Erskine's Speeches, already 
published, are the most finished specimens of bar oratory 
that any a^e or country has produced. This must be 
understood, in relation to the marked distinction between 
the forensic and parliamentary orations of Demosthenes 



KESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 299 

and CiceFO ; whose bar speeches are not equal to those 
of Erskine ; although there is no assignable proportion 
between his parliamentary effusions and the legislative 
energy of the Greek, or the senatorial majesty of the 
Roman orator. 

He who speaks more than is necessary, on any public 
occasion, makes his speaking an end; whereas he who 
only speaks enough, and then ceases, uses his eloquence 
as the means of obtai«ing some ulterior end, some greater 
object; and is the more effective practical being. Julius 
Caesar always said enough; but Cicero, sometimes, said 
more, and was borne down by the superior weight of 
Caesar's talent, efficient energy, and practical wisdom. 
Many other great men besides Cicero, have, in this re- 
spect erred, and lost sight of their object, of the business 
they had to perform, in their anxiety to achieve a bril- 
liant oration. Students of law are more particularly in- 
terested in observing and acting upon this distinction ; 
not only because those among them, who happen to pos- 
sess genius, are prone, in common with all powerful 
minds, to give the reins to their imagination, and permit 
their heated enthusiasm to sweep and swing beyond the 
flaming bounds of time and space, extra jlammantia 
Mcenia Mundi ; — but also, because the profession of the 
law itself can, very seldom, tolerate in a forensic speaker, 
the bursts of deep, intense, and genuine passion; — a 
rich variety of imagery, the higher flights of poetry, the 
finer touches of tenderness, the celestial visions of a sub- 
limated philosophy, the majestic amplitude of a styl^ 
full, flowing, fervid, and energetic : 

" Monte decurrens velut amnis, imbres 
" Qjuein super notas aluere ripas, 
" Fervet, immensusque ruit profundo 
" ore." 

The student should, also, remember the broad line of 
distinction between ancient and modern eloquence. The 
statesmen of antiquity made it the main business of their 
lives to become great proficients in public speaking; 
and consequently, granting to modern orators native ta- 



300 KESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

lents equal to those of Cicero and Demosthenes, yet, as 
they do not labour so intensely on the study of their art, 
modern oratory cannot rival that of the elder time. It 
must be inferior in methodical composition, in the dis- 
tribution of the subjects, in the style, elaborated to per- 
fection by the combined efforts of study, taste, and ge- 
nius ; in the mode of delivery, refined by a long course 
of exact discipline ; in the exquisite union of refinement 
with the most perfect air of simplicity, in the combina- 
tion of art with nature. The proof of this may be found 
by comparing the deliberative orations of Demosthenes 
and Cicero, with the parliamentary and congressional 
effusions of modern debaters. Yet, doubtless, the ex- 
temporaneous reasoning and declamation of modern 
times are better fitted for transacting the business of real 
life, than the more highly finished compositions of anti- 
quity. Wherefore, as all life consists in action^ it is per- 
haps wiser for public men, more particularly for lawyers 
and statesmen, whose whole business it is to be occu- 
pied in the transactions of real life, to accustom them- 
selves to speaking extempore, which, although it can 
never render them such regular and finished orators, as 
Greece and Rome exhibited in the best days of their 
high and palmy greatness, will yet better enable them 
to discharge, with credit to themselves and benefit to 
the community, those various important and difficult du- 
ties, which must ever devolve upon genius aud wisdom, 
amidst the ceaseless activity of commercial enterprise, 
and the everlasting agitations of popular freedom. 

It cannot be necessary to expatiate upon the benefit 
of an habitual study of the best recorded speeches, both 
ancient and modern ; because they contain a vast fund 
of important moral, political, financial, commercial, and 
legal information; delivered by the ablest men of the 
most civilized countries in their most cultivated ages, as 
the last result of their happiest efforts, under the inspi- 
ration of excited genius, giving vent to its effusions, in 
" thoughts that breathe, and words that burn." They 
furnish the best models of clear, profound, and compre- 
hensive reasoning, illumined by all the brilliancy of elo- 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 3Q| 

quence. They afford the finest exercise to the analyti- 
cal powers of the mind, while tracing the golden links of 
their argumentative chain ; they enlarge the understand- 
ing, and elevate the imagination, by opening the richest 
treasures of lofty sentiment and extensive thought, glis- 
tening in all the splendour of appropriate and copious 
language. 

The result as to the comparative merit of American 
and English public speaking, may be given in a few 
words. In the United States there is less learning and 
science among our clergy; less particular legal re- 
search among our lawyers, and less political information 
among our statesmen, than among the corresponding 
professions in Britain ; yet the eloquence of the Ameri- 
can pulpit, bar, and senate, is more full of vigour and 
animation than that of the British church, forum, and 
parliament. In England the college scholarships and 
fellowships, and various other munificent institutions, 
lend continual aid to the learning and science of her 
clergy ; the liberal and protracted classical education, 
and the minute division of intellectual labour, giving to 
one man the single vocation of an attorney ; to a second, 
that of solicitor; to a third, that of conveyancer ; to a 
fourth, that of special pleader ; to a fifth, that of proc- 
tor ; to a sixth, that of a common lawyer ; to a seventh, 
that of a civilian ; to an eighth, that of a chancery law- 
yer, enable each lawyer to be more profoundly and 
extensively versed in the researches of his own parti- 
cular department ; and there being a separate class of 
men trained up exclusively to the pursuits of political 
life, who have, in fact, no other vocation than to acquire 
jDolitical and general information, and transact the pub- 
lic business, enable the British statesmen to become at 
once minutely and comprehensively informed of all that 
regards the policy of their country, both in its home 
government and in its foreign relations. 

But in the United States, our clergy have moderate 
salaries ; no public and few private libraries ; no fel- 
lowships nor scholarships ; no learned leisure, constant 
preaching, and perpetual parochial djity: our lawyers 



302 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED S..ATES. 

combine in one and the same personage all the various 
vocations of an equity lawyer, a civilian, common law- 
yer, proctor, special pleader, conveyancer, solicitor, and 
attorney; and our politicans constitute no separate 
class, but are taken chiefly from our practising lawyers ; 
whence these respective bodies have no opportunity of 
acquiring so much learning and science, Avhether pro- 
fessional or general, as those of Britain. Yet, being 
compelled to rely entirely on the resources of their own 
minds, in their various employments, and to place their 
ingenuity and vigour in a state of constant requisition, 
they acquire habits of greater intellectual promptness and 
energy than their British brethren who labour in similar 
callings, and, leaning systematically on their numerous 
artificial props of multifarious information and minute 
subdivision of employment, exhibit, indeed, more learn- 
ing and knowledge on the subjects which they discuss, 
whether verbally or in writing, but, in general, display 
less acuteness, strength, animation, and resource ol in- 
tellect than the Americans, who, having fewer crutches, 
are obliged to trust the more to their own legs ; whence, 
in the United States, the individuals, and, in Britain, the 
aggregate nation, is the most powerful. At least this 
appears to be the fact to one who has had an opportu- 
nity of observing the people of both countries, by a 
residence of several years in each. 

The common law reporters of the United States, and 
of the separate states of New-York, Massachusetts, 
Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Virginia are fully equal 
to those of England ; and the New-York Chancery re- 
ports are far superior to any that Britain has ever pro- 
duced. In a recent case the two crown lawyers of 
England sent to this city a joint and decided opinion on 
a very important question, involving an immense amount 
of property, and requiring for its solution an intimate 
acquaintance with the English common law and with 
international law in all its branches, natural, conven- 
tional, and customary. This opinion was submitted to 
some of the leaders of our New- York bar, who, after 
due deliberation, gave an opinion directly contrary to 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 3Q3 

that delivered by the attorney and sohcitor general of 
England, and supported it by legal references and gene- 
ral reasoning. When it reached England, and met the 
eyes of the crown lawyers, those gentlemen were in- 
duced to reconsider tne subject, the result of which 
was, that they finally retracted their former opinion, 
and acceded to that of our New-York lawyers. 

In fine, those who are acquainted with both countries 
cannot hesitate to declare, that, although in particular 
departments of legal inquiry, the British lawyers may 
be more learned, more minutely and extensively read, 
yet, in the exhibition of prompt, various, and vigorous 
talent, the bars of New-York, rhiladelphia, and Boston, 
surpass those of London, Edinburgh, and Dublin. 



CHAPTER VI. 

0?i the Literature of the United States. 

XHE writer of a pamphlet, called " The United States 
and England, being a Reply to the Criticism on Inchi- 

?uln's Letters, contained in the Quarterly Review for 
anuary 1814;" traces with considerable acuteness and 
ingenuity, the causes Avhich have retarded the progress 
of literature, art, and science in this country. But the 
whole performance is miserably disgraced by a rancour 
of personal hatred, and a venom of vulgar scurrility, 
that ought never to be admitted into literary controver- 
sy ; sucn weapons of warfare resembling rather the to- 
mahawk of a savage, than the sword of a gentleman. 

Mr, Southey is selected as the victim of the writer's 
spleen, and loaded with every epithet of abuse, that 
the language of vindictive vituperation can furnish. 
And England, together with her institutions, reli- 
gious and political, moral and social, is assailed with 
all the bitterness of a foiled French jacobin. It was 
hoped that this essence of Sans-cullottism had long 
since descended from all decent society, both here and 
in Europe, to the dregs of the populace. Besides, Mr. 
Southey did not write the Review of Inchiquin's Letters ; 
which is said to have been the production of Dr. Ire- 
land's pen. Whoever wrote that article, ought to have 
known better than to indite such execrable trash against 
America; and it is difficult to determinje whether igno- 
rance or scurrihty be its predominant characteristic. 

In a recent publication, called "Letters from the 
South," the American champion has glanced again at 
the same subject; and if possible, has plunged into a 
still lower abyss of personal rincour and scurrility. 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES- 3Q/) 

than in his former production. The respective edi- 
tors of the Edinburgh and Quarterly Kevievvs are 
singled out as the objects of attack; the Scottish editor 
is reprehended for his criticism on the late Dean Swift, 
and compared to " a little cur dog that yelps at the car- 
cass of a dead lion ;" but the most envenomed shafts 
are levelled at the English editor, whose unpardonable 
crime it is, to have risen from a very humble birth, and 
obscure condition, into the rank of one of the ablest 
writers, and most accomplished scholars in Europe ; and 
to have devoted his talents and learning to the support 
of the government of his country. Among other nota- 
ble discoveries, it is found that the Quarterly Review is 
" a low, obscure, contemptible. Billingsgate production." 
Indeed, the philosophy of these sans-cullotte writers ap- 
pears to consist in venting low buffoonery, and the 
coarsest calumnies, on all that mankind generally deem 
illustrious and elevated. If a man unfortunately happen, 
whether by birth or personal services, to be a prince, 
or a lord, or a gentleman, he is immediately pronounced 
to be both knave and fool by these profound philoso- 
phers; according to whose canons of judgment, no one 
possesses any claim to either virtue or wisdom, unless 
he be born a peasant or a cobbler. And the whole 
patriotism of these men consists in calumniating England j 
certainly without adorning or strengthening America. 

It is to be lamented that any one should pervert a fine 
understanding, and a fair proportion of information, by an 
inveterate habit of hating and calumniating whatever 
has a tendency to soften national asperity, to refine the 
taste, enlarge the intellect, and exalt the character of man. 
The substance of this writer's reasons, for the appa- 
rently low state of letters in the United States, is, that 
their learning, like their riches, is more equally distribu- 
ted than in any other country; and although not to be 
found in great masses, is diffused, in a certain degree, 
throughout the whole body of the people. There are 
many causes assigned, why literature has not been more 
cultivated on this side the Atlantic; the chief of which 
are, the facility of acquiring wealth and distinction by 

^39 



306- RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES: 

other means, less laborious and more certain ; the hard- 
ships and dangers of the original settlers ; the revolu- 
tionary war; the unsettled state of things for several 
years alter its termination ; and the origin and progress 
of the French revolution; all tending to divert the Ame- 
rican mind to the love of gain, to military pursuits, to 
pohtical strife, rather than to the calmer pleasures of the 
pen and page. 

These reasons doubtless are correct, and are urged 
with considerable force, both of thought and expression. 
It is now, and has been for some years past, a subject 
of complaint among our most respectable writers, that 
the British are too apt to underrate the literary claims 
of the United States; and arrogantly condemn their 
productions, as being, for the most part, coarse and su- 
perficial. Mr. Walsh, in the first volume of his " Ame- 
rican Review," expresses his indignation at this conduct, 
in terms pointed and eloquent; and Mr. Washington 
Irving, in his very interesting " Biographical Sketcli of 
Campbell," the Scottish poet, enters more largely into 
the subject, in a strain exquisitely touching. The com- 
plaints urged by these gentlemen have too much foun- 
dation in truth ; and it would be reciprocally beneficial, 
if the United States and England were both to abstain 
from mutual recrimination ; and to enter upon a friendly 
and honourable rivalry in the career of literary exertion, 
of scientific pursuit, and liberal praise. It may be use- 
ful, perhaps, to inquire into some of the principal causes, 
which have influenced the progress of letters in this 
country ; premising, however, a theory of the French 
philosophers respecting the nature of American intel- 
lect, and its practical refutation by Dr. Franklin. 

The essence of this theory was, that something in the 
nature and constitution of the American soil and cli- 
mate necessarily diminishes the powers, physical and in- 
tellectual, of all its inhabitants, whether human or 
brute. This position the Count de Buffon first advan- 
ced, in his disquisitions on Natural History : and has 
been followed by a numerous host of philosophers, who 
•mainiain that all our animals are smaller and weaker 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 3Q7 

than tliose in Europe ; that our dogs do not bark ; that 
no hair grows on the bodies of our aboriginal Indians ; 
that Europeans, who migrate hither, degenerate both in 
body and mind ; and that their descendants are ex- 
ceedingly deficient in physical activity and force, and in 
intellectual quickness and strength. One of these pre- 
cious theorists received an adequate entertainment from 
the Arabs, into whose hands he fell a prisoner, during 
Buonaparte's expedition to Egypt, in 1798. This 
French sgavant^ in order to escape manual drudgery, 
when questioned by his captors respecting his usual 
occupations, replied, that he had led a sedentary life ; 
the descendants of Ishmael immediately covered him 
with tar and feathers, and set him to hatch eggs, by 
preserving a sedentary posture on them in the hot sand. 
Dr. Franklin, while American ambassador at Paris, 
undertook lo refute this theory. He invited six of his 
own countrymen, and six Frenchmen, to dine with him. 
As was expected, the French gentlemen, who were all 
profound philosophers, began to inquire into the caitseS 
of the declension of nature, — vegetable, animal, and mo- 
ral, — in America ; one said, the reason why man, in par- 
ticular, became feebler in body and mind, was owing to 
the climate being too hot ; another insisted, that it arose 
from the climate's being too cold ; a third assigned, as 
the efficient cause, the too great quantity of rain; a 
fourth attributed the deficiency to too much drought; 
while the two last demonstrated, that both man and 
beast were dwarfed in America from a want of food in 
the country. Each Gallic disputant maintained his own 
side of the question with characteristic volubifity for a 
length of time: when, at last, they all referred to 
Franklin, for a philosophical solution of the cause, why all 
American creatures are so inferior to Europeans in size 
and strength ? The Doctor very gravely desired his 
six countrymen to stand up, side by side ; which they 
did, and exhibited a goodly spectacle ; for they were 
all stout, well-proportioned, tall, handsome men ; the 
half-dozen Frenchmen were then requested to stand up, 
side by side ; they did so, and presented a ludicrous 



308 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

contrast to the degenerate Americans ; for they were 
all little, lank, yellow, shrivelled personages, resembling 
Java monkeys. They all peeped up at their opposite 
neighbours, and were silent — though not satisfied. 

It is, indeed, quite unphilosophical to measure genius 
by geographical lines, and to suppose that Providence 
apportions talent according to degrees of latitude. The 
limits of the present work will not allow the discussion, 
or it were easy to show, both by reasoning, a priori^ on 
general principles, and also by a regular induction from 
facts, that although individuals dilfer from each other in 
degrees of native talent, yet large masses of human be- 
ings average an equal aggregate amount of capacity, in 
all ages and countries. Indeed, when it is said there 
must be an average equality of talent in the whole, or 
in any large portions of the human race, in all ages and 
countries, it is only saying, in other wordsVHhat man is 
substantially the same being, in body, mind, and spirit, 
from the beginning to the end of the human creation. 
Whence, although individuals differ from each other in 
their respective proportions of talent, so that scarcely 
any two persons, perhaps, bring into the world precise- 
ly the same extent of capacity, the gradations of intel- 
lect being as various as the forms and countenances of 
men, yet the whole, or any large portion of mankind, 
averasres an equal ajrcrcirate of talent with that of the 
same number m any other age or country, v or m- 
stance, the ten millions of people who now, m 1817, in- 
habit these United States, average as large an aggre- 
gate of native genius as ten millions of French, or Bri- 
tish, or Greeks, or Romans, or any other people, of 
whatever age or country, ancient or modern. 

At all events, it is too late now to oppose any mere 
theory respecting the degeneracy of men in America, to 
the irresistible argument of contrary tacts, seeing, that 
the Americans have, for a seiics of years, displayed the 
utmost intelligence, enterprise, spirit, and perseverance 
in all the occupations of peace ; and, likewise, exhibited 
the most consummate skill, intrepidity, and heroism in 
war, whether conflicting in the field or on the ocean. 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES, 3QC) 

The truth is, that the great mass of the American peo^ 
pie surpasses that of all other countries in shrewdness of 
intellect, in general intelHgence, and in that versatile 
capacity which enables men to enter upon and prosecute 
successfully, new situations and untried employments. 
It would be difficult for any country to show that it has 
produced men of greater genius, in their respective de- 
partments, than Rittenhouse, Franklin, and West. 

The causes^ therefore, why the United States have 
not yet equalled the most civilized European nations in 
the refinements of art, the improvements of science, and 
the splendours of erudition, are to be sought in other 
sources than those of any natural deficiency in intellec- 
tual vigour and strength. Some of these causes are 
now to be examined. _ 

Compare, for a moment, the relative situation of a 
student in the United States and in England, and there 
will be no necessity of recurring to physical causes, in 
order to account for the comparative inferiority of Ame- 
rican to British literature. In Britain the candidates 
for literary fame are in possession of the accumulated 
learning of several centuries ; they have access to ample 
libraries, containing books written upon almost every 
subject of human inquiry ; from the great crowding of 
population, they enjoy the benefit of a continual compe- 
tition of talent ; owing to the great opulence of the 
country, there is a constant demand for literary pro- 
ductions, which are multiplied alike by the magnificent ^ 
liberality of the hereditarily wealthy, who collect to- 
gether innumerable volumes, and by the spirit and in- 
telligence of the middle orders of the people, including 
the learned professions, the country gentlemen, the mer- 
chants, the manufacturers, and the yeomanry, who ex- 
amine for themselves into the merits of the writers they 
peruse ; from the liberally endowed seminaries of edu- 
cation, both schools and colleges, a high bounty of 
emolument and honour is perpetually offered for the 
exertions of lettered men; by the extensive circulation 
and salutary influence of so many literary journals, re- 
plete with various information and full of the most vi- 



310 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

gorous displays of genius, the republic of letters in 
Great Britain is lopped of its luxuriance, swept of its 
frivolity and absurdity, cleansed of its dulncss and igno- 
rance, chastened in its strength, and brightened in its 
ornament. All these, and many other causes, are con- 
tinually operating to excite the men of letters in Britain 
to a display of the most energetic and brilliant exhibi- 
tions of talent and learning; and do we therefore mar- 
vel, that in every department of literature and science, 
the nation has produced, and still continues to produce, 
works of such transcendent excellence, that her philo- 
sophers, poets, orators, historians, moralists, and critics, 
command the applause and homage of their Contempora- 
ries, and ensure the admiration ol all future ages ? 

But what is the case with respect to the United 
States ? The very condition of society in this country 
forbids its people, as yet, to possess an exalted literary 
character. A comparatively thin population, spread 
over an immense surface, opposes many serious obsta- 
cles to the production and circulation of literary effu- 
sions ; the infancy of its national independence, and the 
peculiar structure of its social institutions, do not allow 
a sufficient accumulation o( individual and family wealth 
to exist in the community, so as to create an efJ'ectual 
demand for the costly or frequent publications of ori- 
ginal works ; the means of subsistence are so abundant 
and so easy of attainment, and the sources of personal 
revenue so numerous, that nearly all the active talent in 
the nation is employed in prosecuting some commercial, 
or agricultural, or professional pursuit, instead of being 
devoted to the quieter and less lucrative labours of lite- 
rature ; the scarcity of public libraries and of private 
collections of books, renders any great attainments in 
science and erudition exceedingly toilsome and difficult; 
the want of literary competition, rewards, and honours, 
the entire absence of all government patronage, whether 
State or federal, togethe rwith the very generally defec- 
tive means of liberal education, necessarily deter men of 
high talents from dedicating themselves solely to the 
occupation of letters ; and consequently prevent the 



RESOUPMIES OF THE UNITED STATER, 3 j j 

appearance of those finished productions, whether in 
verse or prose, which can only find an existence when 
the efforts of genius are aided by undisturbed leisure 
and extensive learning. 

Such are some of the causes which contribute to re- 
tard the progress of literature in the United States ; 
whence we have no right to expect, while these causes 
continue to operate, the appearance of many original 
American publications, bearing the stamp of very pro- 
found science or very comprehensive erudition. The 
literary taste of the generality of our readers may be 
inferred from inspecting the books of the public libraries 
in New- York, Philadelphia, and Boston, the three most 
enlightened portions of the union. The JVovels, chiefly 
English, with a few bad translations from French fic- 
tions, the sweepings of the Minerva press, in Leaden- 
hall-street, are most abundantly used, as affording the 
highest gratification to the lovers of literature ; rlays 
and Farces are in the next degree of requisition ; Moral 
Essays and History suffer a little injury in the first, less 
in the second, and none in the subsequent volumes ; the 
Classics, elementary books on Metaphysics, Political 
Economy, and Philosophical subjects, generally sleep 
securely on their shelves, undusted and undisturbed by 
any profane hand or prying eye. Of course, this state- 
ment does not apply to the liberal scholars who visit 
these libraries — they, however, are comparatively few. 

As is the generality of readers, so is that of writers, 
in a country. For the literary, like every other mar- 
ket, must always be supplied with commodities in qua- 
lity and quantity proportioned to its demand for mer- 
chantable wares. If the purchasers insist upon being 
provided with nonsense, there will always be a sufiicient 
supply of that article forthcoming for the use of the 
home consumption trade. Hence, as must ever happen 
in such an order of things, the press teems with those 
mushroom productions of folly, which are engendered 
by the conjunction of ignorance with impertinence. 
Thus, at the first dawning of the revival of letters in 
the south of Europe, the Troubadors and Provencal 



3] 2 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

writers deluged the land nitli a flood of fantastic fop- 
pery and childisli conceit. Thus, in later times, even 
in oiH' own days, the minor men of letters, the literatuli 
of the age, enter into a small conspiracy against all use- 
ful and solid information, and commit a feeble outrage 
upon the efl'orts of genius and learning. And as is the 
case with all weak animals, these self-styled wise men, 
instinctively throng together in herds ; and while they 
wage eternal warfare against all exalted intellect, inces- 
santly besmear the effusions of each othcr'*s folly, with 
the ignoble ordure of each other's praise. They per- 
petually and reciprocally lavish the epithets of "inge- 
nious," " learned," "acute," "illustrious," "profound," 
"philosophical," and so forth, upon the dismal lucubra- 
tions of themselves and their brethren, which atford no 
light, but rather darkness visible ; while at the same time, 
they industriously raise the cry of alarm and horror, 
even at the sound of the distant footsteps of sense and 
knowledge. 

The defenceless field animals are always gregarious; 
always found in flocks and herds; but the lion ranges 
alone over the extent of his undisputed dominion. True 
genius scorns the knavish arts of popular adulation: it 
loves to be solitary ; and when surrounded by the cack- 
ling of folly, it broods over the inmost recesses of its 
soul in silence, and " pines, like the melancholy eagle, 
amidst the meaner domestic birds." 

It is however to be remembered, that although the 
condition of society forbids us, at present^ to expect in 
the United States many original writers on subjects in- 
volving an intimate acquaintance with the depths of sci- 
ence, and the heights of learning; yet there is muck 
more literary excellence in this country, than ever meets 
the public eye ; because, as from the comparative thin- 
ness of the population, as avcII as from other reasons, 
authorship is not a distinct and separate calling, as in 
some of the more crowded parts of Europe ; the best 
scholars in America, are those who follow other pur- 
suits, in addition to that of letters ; namely, our profes- 
sional gentlemen, the clergy, physicians, and lawyers; 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



313 



and some who are not attached to either of these voca- 
tions, but are immersed in commercial enterprises, or 
agricultural experiments. Among these different classes 
are to be found individuals, who, on general subjects of 
learning and taste, need not turn their backs to any of 
the literary veterans on the other side of the Atlantic. 
From the comparatively small demand for original 
works in the United States, our ablest and best in- 
formed men seldom appear as writers; and the field of 
letters is left almost entirely clear, for the exhibitions of 
those who are not to be numbered among the most 
learned, and the ablest men in America. Add to this, 
that the continual influx of British literature, although 
beneficial in imparting to our people new and extensive 
information upon a great variety of subjects, is so far 
prejudicial, as it depresses the spirit of native literature, 
by creating a fastidious rage for foreign publications, 
and an affectation of contempt for the productions of 
our own press. » 

Yet notwithstanding all these unpropitious circum- 
stances, the literary spirit has been for some years past 
rising in the United States ; witness the progressive in- 
crease in the importation of foreign books, in the repub- 
lication of British works, and the productions of Ameri- 
can writers. And probably, on a fair view of the sub- 
ject, we may conclude the progress of letters in this 
country to be proportionally equal to that of Britain ; 
considering the different states of society in the two 
countries. But, perhaps, it may be useful to notice 
some of the other causes, which obstruct the course of 
literature in the Union. Among these, is to be particu- 
larly noticed, the unfortunate practice of entering upon 
active life at too early an age. Partly from the condi- 
tion of society, and partly from the eager appetite for 
wealth, which especially characterizes all young and 
thinly settled countries ; divines, lawyers, physicians, and 
merchants, rush into the occupations of active life, al- 
most before they reach that period which the wisdom 
of the common law allots as the termination of infancy.^ 
Plunging so early into the minuter details of practical 

40 



314 n£SOL'RCES OF THE UNITED STATEb. 

employment, prevents the due developement of the in- 
tellectual faculties ; and after a while renders the mind, 
from disuse, both unable and unwilling to direct its at- 
tention to the more abstracted pursuits of literature and 
science. 

There is a salutary adage in the old law books, which 
runs thus, "In juvenetheologoconscientiae detrimentum; 
in juvene legista bursse detrimentum; in juvene medico 
caemeterii incrementum ;" the consciences of his parish- 
ioners suffer by a young clergyman ; the purse of his 
clients diminishes in the hands of a young lawyer; and 
the churchyard increases by the labours of a young phy- 
sician. This adage, however, has not yet found its way 
into the United States ; where the young people of all 
classes are precip>itated into business during childhood. 
Lord Bacon complains, that in his time, the full growth 
of mind was retarded by the pernicious custom, then 
prevalent in Europe, of permitting youth to enter into 
active life at so early an age as thirty. This prince of 
philosophers was, in common with other great men, his 
contemporaries, in the habit of indulging Utopian vi- 
sions concerning the millennial perfection of this his 
" JVew Atalantis ;" and the most confident predictions 
were hazarded, that America, rising superior to th« 
heedlessness of European haste, would patiently unfold 
her national intellect, by large and liberal study; so as 
to produce in each particular calling, the most beneficial 
results, and most luminous discoveries. 

With such a conviction, how would Verulam be 
moved, could he behold with what unmeasured precipi- 
tancy, this New Atalantis, this Athens of the western 
world, pours forth its swarms of unfledged youth to as- 
sume tne responsibilities of public life, ere they have 
passed the little period of one and twenty years. At 
this unripe age, the preacher takes upon himself to ex- 
pound the all-important doctrines that characterize the 
stupendous scheme of redemption ; and to impart spi- 
ritual consolation to veteran Cnristians. The physician, 
also, is, at this early age, licensed to break the sixth 
commandment ; and the lawyer is. at this premature pe- 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 3J5 

riod, allowed to practise, as master of a system, which 
has grown up to its present complicated perfection un- 
der the continuous efforts of the ablest men of many 
generations, in both the hemispheres, European and 
American ; a system, which has reached its present ma- 
turity of wisdom as the result of the social experience 
of twelve hundred years. At this early age, our youth 
are deemed competent to prosecute the business of ac- 
tive commerce, and to venture gratuitous opinions upon 
the most difficult questions of policy, involving great na- 
tional relations and interests. 

The consequences of this precocious publicity are, a 
superficial elementary education, a perpetual pruriency 
of prattle upon all subjects, without a due fathoming of 
the depths of any one of them, and an entailed disabili- 
ty of fully developing the understanding which is nar- 
rowed in early life, by being prematurely absorbed in 
the minute, but necessary details, incident to every prac- 
tical calling. Whence, with their due proportion of 
genius, in common with all other nations, and with the 
advantage of a more general diffusion of popular intelli- 
gence than is to be found in any other community ; too 
many of our citizens, in all the learned professions, begin, 
continue, and end their career, on much narrower ground 
than their native capacity, properly unfolded by previ- 
ous general information, would enable them to cover. 

The regular order of events, however, is providing a 
remedy for the intemperate haste, which has hitherto 
plunged beardless boys into public life. The mere 
pressure of a rapidly increasing population, by aug- 
menting professional competition, must, in due time, 
compel the adoption of a better course of previous edu- 
cation. Even now a larger stock of elementary inform- 
ation is necessary to enable a man to distinguish him- 
self as a divine, or physician, or lawyer, than was re- 
quisite twenty years since. And, doubtless, twenty 
years hence, what is now deemed a sufficiency of liberal 
instruction, will prove but a slender share of essential 
acquisitions. 



316 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Seeing then, that sufficient time and opportunity are 
not allowed our professional men to prosecute literary 
pursuits, from what fountains are the streams of Ameri- 
can literature to spring? — from the colleges, scaiiered so 
profusely all over the union ? Alas ! few, if any of 
these academical institutions, are so munificently endow- 
ed, as to enable their inmates to devote the combined 
advantages of talent, leisure, independence, and inclina- 
tion, to the service and promotion of letters. In this 
country, there are no fellowships, no scholarships, no 
exhibitions, none of those situations, which, in the col- 
leges of Europe, direct so large a portion of talents to 
the successful prosecution of learning. Our professors 
and teachers are too scantily paid, and too constantly 
worked, to be, often, able to execute original and ex- 

tensive literary undertakings. 

Another obstacle to the growth of literature in the 
United States, arises from the great propensity to com- 
sume the talent of the country in the emision of news- 
paper essays, and political pamphlets ; instead of con- 
centrating it in the production of some regular, consecu- 
tive work. In consequence of these desultory intellec- 
tual habits, periodical journals, as Reviews and Maga- 
zines, seldom last long. The author can obtain little 
or no assistance from others in his literary efforts ; the 
persons competent to aid him in such an undertaking 
being comparatively few throughout the union, and 
those, for the most part, actively employed in some la- 
borious calling ; and it is not in the power of any one 
man, however gifted with talent, adorned with know- 
ledge, and armed with industry, to execute, a/ofie, a lite- 
rary journal, as it ought to be executed. Add to this, 
the universal vice of the United States, a perpetual 
craving after novelty. The charge which Demosthenes 
brought against his own countrymen, that they were 
continually running about, and asking, — " is there any 
thing new .'"' — is equally applicable to the Americans. 
This eternal restlessness, and desire of change, pervade 
the whole structure of our society ; the same man will 
start into life as a clergyman, then turn lawyer, next, 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 31-7 

convert himself into a farmer and land-jobber, and, 
taking a seat in congress, or some state legislature, by 
the way, end his days as a merchant and money-broker. 
The people are incessantly shifting their habitations, 
employments, views, and schemes; the residence of a 
servant does not average two months in each place ; the 
abode of a whole household is generally changed once 
a year, and sometimes oftener; numerous families, that 
have been long settled in the elder states of New-York, 
Connecticut, and Massachusetts, are continually migra- 
ting into Ohio, or the territories of Alabama, Illinois, 
and Mississippi ; the executive, the legislators^ the ma- 
gistrates, and officers of all kinds, are changed biennial- 
ly, or annually, or half-yearly, according to the greater, 
or less infusion of the restless spirit of democracy, into 
our various forms of government. 

Such being the temper, disposition, and habits of the 
people, new periodical publications are continually start- 
ing up, receive a little eager, capricious encouragement, 
languish a brief space, and die, leaving the same sickly 
course to be run by a race of successors, equally san- 
guine and short-lived. It is doubtful, if any one of the 
best European journals, most distinguished for the mag- 
nificent display of genius and knowledge, were to issue 
from the American press, as a native production, it 
would reach the second year of its unsupported exist- 
ence. Some years since, a very respectable body of 
men, in this city, selected from all the three learned 
professions, started a periodical work, called " The 
American Review, and Magazine," which was ably 
conducted, and perished for want of patronage. The 
" Boston Anthology," supported by the labours of some 
of the best literary men of all callings, in that town, 
some time after, shared the same fate. And, at a more 
recent period, the " American Review," edited by Mf . 
Walsh, was suffered to expire, notwithstanding the 
splendid talents and various erudition of its conductor. 

There never was a time when the United States stood 
so much in need of an original, native review, as now, in 
order to erect a standard of independent, impartial eri- 



318 



RESOraCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



ticism, for the benefit both of writers and readers ; to 
animadvert on American productions, and give some 
account of European Hterature, particularly of France, 
Italy, and Germany. The Edinburgh and Quarterly 
Reviews are republished, and widely circulated in this 
country; they are, unquestionably, the ablest literary 
journals the world has ever yet produced ; they display 
a stupendous aggregate of genius, taste, and learning, 
upon almost every subject of human inquiry ; and are 
also important to us, as exhibiting the sentiments of 
the two great contending parties that divide and govern 
the British empire. But they say little on American 
literature ; and that little is not always either liberal or 
just. Besides, they suffer their political feelings and 
opinions to mingle too much with, and occasionally io 
pervert, their literary criticisms. An original Untied 
States Review, therefore, which should steer clear of 
the extremes of party spirit, and exhibit a fair and ho- 
nest view of American literature, and such an account 
of European productions as might be readily obtained 
by a liberal correspondence with that quarter of the 
globe, would very materially tend to promote the cause 
of letters in this country, and draw out into public no- 
tice, as contributors, our ablest and best informed men, 
who now are the grave of their own extensive acquisi- 
tions, by reading all and writing nothing. 

But, although in the higher walks of literature, the 
United States do not yet excel, they surpass all other 
nations in elementary education ; that is to say, in im- 

f)arting the rudiments of instruction to the people at 
arge. Most of the States, and especially those of New- 
England, have established district schools, for the in- 
struction of the children of all the inhabitants. Whence, 
scarcely a native American is to be found who cannot 
read and write, and cast accounts ; and they all read 
newspapers, of which there are more printed in the 
Union than in all the British empire, and political 
pamphlets, if they read nothing else. The great body 
of the European people are altogether uneducated ; Hol- 
land, Sweden, the Protestant Cantons of Switzerland, 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES, 3|C| 

and Scotland, it is believed, are the only portions of* 
Europe ill which the government makes any provision for 
the general instruction of its population. The intellec- 
tual and moral advantages ot such a system are mani- 
fest in the superior habits and character of the New- 
England people, when compared with the rest of the 
Union ; in the greater sobriety and providence of the 
Scottish, when compared with their English and Irish 
neighbours ; in the more regular and orderl)^ conduct 
of the Dutch, Swedes, and Swiss, in comparison with 
the rest of continental Europe. 

Yet, notwithstanding the system of parochial schools 
has proved so exceedingly beneficial in Scotland, the 
British government has not introduced it into England 
or Ireland. If the people of those two countries were 
as well instructed as the Scottish, the moral power of 
the British empire, and consequently its national strength 
and greatness, would be quadrupled in fifty years. 
Nevertheless, Britain has of late considerably increased 
the education of her English and Irish population, by 
means of the Bell and Lancaster plans, and Charity 
and Sunday schools. But these operate only partially ; 
she must establish a national system, if she wishes to 
have all her people instructed. The saying of George 
the Third, " that he hoped soon to know that every 
poor man, within his realm, possessed and could read 
the Bible," was dictated by a spirit of exalted benevo- 
lence and enlarged wisdom, better calculated to im- 
prove and render prosperous a nation, than the most 
splendid achievements of naval and military heroism. 

Both countries would be highly benefitted by bor- 
rowing from each other; England by adopting the 
American system of instructing all the people, and the 
United States by cultivating that higher species of 
learning, which has rendered the English scholars, for 
a series of ages, so peculiarly pre-eminent. When will 
the day arrive, that, in reference to our own classical 
writers, we may be able to exclaim with Callimachus f 



320 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES 

Oio* 6 TV IToAAatva; trtiirxTt S'et<pyiS'o( opvi^ ! 

Oix ^' cXtt Te fA.tXct6pdi ! t%*i, ix.ai, ac-rii xMrpoi ! 

K«i< irev i'ii ret 6vftrf» xaXtt tto^i 4>*ie0f upxTo-ti. 

I am afraid some considerable time will elapse before 
Apollo will deign to descend, and visit the temple of 
American inspiration, in the same manner, and to the 
same extent, that he has visited Greece, Rome, and Eng- 
land. Upon the first introduction of the Greek lan- 
guage into the English universities, it met with very de- 
cided opposition ; the combatants dividing into two 
companies, the one favourable to the study of the '■^ new 
tongue," as it was called, being denominated Greeks ; 
that against it, Trojans^ which last, whenever they saAv 
any thing they did not understand, cried out "Griecum 
est, et non potest legi." For a long time, in England, 
the Trojans triumphed ; at last they united their forces 
with their opponents, and both have, ever since, contri- 
buted to augment the strength, and brighten the splen- 
dour of their country's literature. In the United States, 
at present, the Trojans are a fearful majority. 

The power, wealth, and influence of every nation 
depends more upon the aggregate of disposable intelli- 
gence afloat in the community than upon its extent of 
territory and number of inhabitants. The progress of 
all nations in wealth and strength, in internal security 
and external influence, has been proportioned to their 
activity of mind and advancement in knowledge. The 
art of navigation, the resources of commerce, the ascen- 
dancy in war, the discoveries of science, the duration of 
dominion, can never take up their abode permanently, 
excepting in countries where the paths of knowledge 
are incessantly explored by the various but combined 
efforts of numerous minds. And a general activity of 
intellect can only be called forth in a nation by allowing 
full freedom of inquiry on all religious, political, and 
moral subjects. A due proportion of this general ac- 
tivity will always be directed to the cultivation of those 
arts and sciences which subserve the purposes of prac- 
tical life, the increase of individual convenience, and 
the augmentation of national power. The triumphant 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 321 

issue of civilized warfare is indissolubly connected widi 
the active cultivation of mind, the wide diffusion of 
knowledge, the free exercise of reason, among the home 
population of every country. No precarious supply, no 
importation of talent from abroad, no partial attention 
to any one branch of improvement to the exclusion of 
the rest, can compensate for the want of general culti- 
vation in the minds of the native inhabitants. 

Of what immense benefit was the general education 
of their people to the United States, during their revo- 
lutionary struggle and their recent conflict with Bri- 
tain, in multiplying their resources, energy, and skill ! 
And how prodigiously has it forwarded their national 
career in all the arts and occupations of peace ! 

But although elementary instruction is generally dif- 
fused throughout the union, liberal education is not suf- 
ficiently encouraged ; the causes of which are rooted in 
the very condition of our social fabric. Some of these 
it may b=3 useful to enumerate. Owing to the peculiar 
circumstances of America and her great commercial 
capacities, a large proportion of her active talent is de- 
voted to trade. But although trade, when considered 
in the aggregate, is a great engine of civilization, and 
very beneficial to mankind, by connecting different na- 
tions, by opening a wider field for the exertions of 
productive industry, and by enlarging the sphere of 
inquiry, yet its effect upon the understanding of the 
individual employed in it is 7iot so beneficial. For the 
trader, whether a wholesale merchant or a retail dealer, 
must employ his mind chiefly in detail, in attending to 
minute particulars and petty circumstances, which is apt 
to generate a habit adverse to expansion of the intellect. 
He, whose head is filled with commercial calculations 
and speculations from morning to night, will not be 
often inclined to peruse the pages of the historian, the 
philosopher, or the moralist. Under such circum- 
stances, wealth alone will be the object of desire ; and, 
as literature opens no such shining path to its votaries, 
it will become rather an object of contempt than of cul- 
tivation. 



322 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

In consequence of the general predominance of the 
trading spirit, there is a great dearth of liberal educa- 
tion throughout the United States. For no man can 
know the value of what he himself has never possessed ; 
and consequently an illiterate fatlier can never appre- 
ciate the importance of his son's being liberally edu- 
cated, nor know what progress his boy makes in learn- 
ing ; and will be apt to imagine that it is not necessary 
to consume much time, or expend much money, in giving 
the child an opportunity of acquiring general inform- 
ation. Accordingly our grammar schools are, for the 
most part, deplorably defective. The schoolmasters 
consist generally of unlettered foreign adventurers and 
native boys, wiio are themselves studying law, or phy- 
sic, or divinity, and propose to teach others, that they 
may be able to defray the expense of their own profes- 
sional probation, and then quit the trade of teaching 
altogether. Such schoolmasters swarm in every lane 
and alley of our towns and cities, and vie with each 
other in bold assertions, that they can carry a boy 
through a course of liberal education in a few months, 
and at a small expense. This delectable ' promise is 
swallowed by the ignorant and credulous parent, who 
applauds his own and the preceptor's sagacity for con- 
triving and executing a system of instruction, which, by 
the expenditure of a few dollars, shall be able to coun- 
teract all the accustomed laws of human nature, falsify 
all human experience, operate impossibilities, and ma- 
nufacture a scholar by teaching him nothing. 

The use of the grammar is either exploded alto- 
gether, or very superficially taught, or translated into 
English, as some profound scholars have done with 
More's Greek grammar, in order to lessen the labour of 
education. But the basis of all valuable instruction 
must be laid in the necessity of intellectual toil ; no 
mental acquisition Avorth possessing can be obtained 
without previous mental exertion. What is not known 
accurately is not known at all ; and nothing can be 
known accurately without previous labour of the un- 
derstandincr. 7'he onlv use of education is to unfold 

3 t 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 323 

the faculties of the mind, and teach the pupil to think; 
but the superficial smattering of a few assemblages of 
words and phrases, badly understood, and worse deli- 
vered, can never develope any power of the mind, nor 
render man an animal capable of reasoning. Neverthe- 
less, some grown-up men, who pass for scholars in the 
United States, profess to condemn the mode of teaching 
Latin and Greek by the aid of grammar^ which they 
say is too abstract for the comprehension of boys; 
wherefore they recommend those languages to be 
taught " by reading a great deal, and committing the 
Dictionary and Lexicon to memory." 

This, although a fashionable, appears to be a strange 
method of teacliing any, especially the dead languages. 
Why strive to encumber a child's memory with the 
numberless words and phrases of a whole Dictionary, 
when it would be so much easier to learn and retain the 
comparatively few and simple rules of grammar } Be- 
sides, it is not in the nature of things that children shall 
read a great deal; it is necessary that their tasks be short 
and simple, and that they be allowed to promote their 
health and growth by spending a great proportion of 
their time in bodily exercise and amusement. Nor is it 
easy to perceive, how the mind can be much improved 
by committing to memory a vast number of words and 
phrases to which they attach no definite meaning. 
Words are merely arbitrary signs to designate certain 
things; language is made up of words, and grammar is 
the reduction of language into general and fixed rules. 
And the universal voice of the wise and learned in all 
ages has required that well-educated persons should 
speak and write with grammatical accuracy, in order to 
distinguish their effusions from those of the untaught 
multitude. 

At first, children learn by single words, which is only 
endurable, while they are so young as to be only capa- 
ble of receiving a few simple ideas ; it would be endless 
to endeavour to teach a whole language by single 
words. The science of grammar therefore, steps in, 



324 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

and by teaching the child a few general rules, together 
with their application, enables it to understand all the 
particulars of that language, so reduced to general rules 
and principles, indeed, all sciences rest upon general 
rules and principles as their basis ; and thus, not only 
render knowledge more ready at our call, and more 
easy of application, but also enable us continually to in- 
crease its limits. Savages teach their children by sin- 
gle words, and how scanty and imperfect arc their lan- 
guages ! Infants can only be taught in detail, by single 
words ; but as soon as the mind begins to open, and is 
able to rise from details to general rules, grammar is 
taught them, in order to facilitate, and render sure and 
permanent the acquisition of language. 

Teaching language without the help of grammar, 
was a favourite scheme of Mr. Locke, who in his book 
on education says, " that languages learned by rote, 
serve well enough for the common affairs of life, and 
ordinary commerce." Now allowing this to be the fact, 
is it such a knowledge of language, as to enable a per- 
son to speak and write it correctly } If not, why dis- 
card the use of grammar? The truth is, Mr. Locke's 
book is a very meagre performance ; not calculated to 
give the student enlarged and comprehensive views, but 
mtended merely for the use o{ country gentlemen ; and all 
the world knows what sort of philosophers the English 
country squires were a hundred years since. His re- 
marks upon poetry and language^ are peculiarly frigid 
and unsatisfactory. The Treatises on Education, by 
Dr. Knox and Dr. Barrow, contain ample refutations of 
all Mr. Locke's anti-classical heresies. Nay, but these 
very men who explode the use of grammar in teaching 
boys, admit that when these boys grow up, they must 
study grammar, to obtain a more critical knowledge of 
the language. The whole of this boasted method then, 
at last, resolves itself into this, that grammar is of no use 
in teaching a language, but a boy must learn a diction- 
ary by heart, and read a great deal, and after several 
years so spent, he must then learn the grammar, in or- 
der to understand the language. 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 325 

But is it likely that boys who have been taught in so 
desultory and unconnected a manner, will study gram- 
mar when they become men ? It is better to begin at 
tlie right end, and teach the grammar in the first in- 
stance ; for each general rule of grammar, by its appli- 
cation to a multitude of particulars, is surely a readier 
and more certain method of teaching a language, than 
by learning single words, or detached phrases, without 
any general rules by which light can be thrown upon 
the different parts of the language, and by which those 
different parts can be conjoined, so as to constitute a 
whole, correct in its symmetry, and fair in its propor- 
tions. And requiring boys to commit the grammar to 
memory, and to apply its rules to the words and phrases, 
that occur in the course of reading; which is called 
parsing-, or analyzing the language, is a better exercise 
of the mind, and better calculated to unfold the reason- 
ing powers, than working a proposition in Euclid. 

" The study of grammar requires more force of atten- 
tion, and connexion of thought, than that of mathema- 
tics. Grammar unites ideas, as calculation combines 
figures ; and its logic is as precise as that of algebra ; 
with the additional advantage of making at the same 
time, a direct and powerful application to all that is alive 
and vififorous in the mind. Words at once denote 
sounds, and numbers, and images, to excite emotions in 
the understanding. They are subject to the strict dis- 
cipline of syntax, and yet full of the native force and 
signification of the ideas they conventionally represent. 
In the metaphysics of grammar, the philosophy of lan- 
guage, energy of thought, and accuracy of reasoning, 
are mtimately united." 

England and Ireland have, for some conturies past, 
produced the most acconn)lished classical scholars in the 
•world ; and they teach Latin and Greek by the gram- 
mar. Now, it will require very strong evidence to prove 
the superiority of any new-fangled theory, to a method 
whose entire success has been established by a series of 
national facts, for so great a length of time. 



326 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Nevertheless, we shall probably witness the abolition 
of grammar, as the basis of classical study in the United 
States ; for some of our college-professors maintain ihe 
necessity of teaching Latin and Greek without gram- 
mar ; and triumphantly ask, " if children are not taught 
to speak, and write English without the use of gram- 
mar, merely by reading, and committing the dictionary 
to memory ?" — To which the answer is obvious ; that 
those, who have never learned grammar of any kind, are 
7wt apt to write, if to speak English correctly; besides, 
there are no opportunities of teaching a dead, as we can 
a living language, by speaking it. Nor are the facilities 
of reading it so great. The utmost that this ro/c-method 
of teaching languages, without the aid of grammar, can 
accomplish, is to enable people to prattle in a living 
tongue, upon the ordinary topics of every-day discourse ; 
but it cannot teach them to write correctly, even in a 
living tongue ; and, certainly, will give only a very su- 
perficial knowledge of the Greek and Latin languages. 
For undeniable witnesses to the truth of this assertion, 
we refer to those amongst us, who have been taught 
the classics in this way. 

In this city, the grammar-schools are as good as in 
any part of the union, and there are some few excellent 
teachers, gentlemen, who have made teaching their pro- 
fession, and are themselves good classical scholars. But 
New-York has her full share of inefficient preceptors. 

A deep conviction of the deplorable condition of our 
elementary schools, induced the President of Columbia 
College, the Rev. Dr. Harris, in the year 1810, to lay 
before the Board of Trustees a plan for establishing a 
seminary of instruction, similar to the high school in 
Edinburgh, and attaching it to the college, as an insti- 
tution that might prepare boys for entering with effect 
on their collegiate course; the senior form of the gram- 
mar school being, after due examination, to be transfer- 
red into the college freshman-class. This plan, the out- 
line and details of which appear to be veryjudicious, has 
not yet been adopted by the Trustees of Columbia Col- 
lege. 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 327 

If the grammar schools are deficient, if the rudiments 
of the classics are not accurately taught ; if the boy is 
only crammed with a senseless jargon, conned by rote, 
and mechanically remembered, of course our colleges 
and universities cannot be calculated to produce good 
scholars. Where no foundation is laid, no superstruc- 
ture can be reared ; what is never begun, can never be 
finished. If the grammar schools transmit to the col- 
leges boys ignorant of the first principles of a liberal 
education, the colleges will, in due season, send out into 
the world those boys, empty and uninformed, to dis- 
charge the important functions of legislating and admi- 
nistering government and justice, for a great and rising 
empire. Our boys, generally, enter college at fourteen^ 
and commence their baccalaureate at eighteen years of 
age, when they begin their studies for the profession of 
law, or divinity, or physic, or enter the counting-house 
of a merchant, where, of course, all studies, excepting 
the leger and the newspaper, are laid aside. Nor do 
the professional students often prosecute classical stu- 
dies to any great extent or depth. Nor is it to be ex- 
pected, seeing, that in the colleges, the pupils are not 
very comprehensively instructed in the classics, or belles- 
lettres, rhetoric, or moral philosophy, or history, or poli- 
tical economy, or natural philosophy, or metaphysics, or 
any of those great branches of knowledge, peculiarly 
fitted to invigorate, enlarge, and adorn the intellect. 

In addition to this, the American colleges, generally, 
are suffered to languish for want of suflicient funds, 
either from private contributions or the aid of govern- 
ment. Whence, they can seldom offer a bounty high 
enough to procure, as presidents and professors, men of 
talents and information sufficiently forcible and extensive 
to lead the minds of their pupils to hterary excellence, 
or inspire them with an inextinguishable ardour for im- 
provement. For men of powerful intellect generally 
know their own value, and cannot often be induced to 
starve upon a scanty stipend, when a different direction 
of their time, industry, and talents, might conduct them 
to honour and independence. The phrensy for multiply- 



328 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

ing colleges all over the union, and the custom of ap- 
pointing illiterate men as trustees, also retard the pro- 
gress of literature, bj diminishing the number of stu- 
dents at each college, and thus lessening the means of 
its support, and by ensuring the appointmeut of absurd 
regulations, and impracticable plans of study. Whence, 
altogether. Dr. Johnson's sarcasm is much more appli- 
cable to the United States than to the country at wnich 
it was originally levelled, namely, " learning here is like 
bread in a besieged town, every man has a mouthful, 
and no one a belly full." 

There are about fifty colleges in the United States ; 
almost every State having two or three. Of these, 
Harvard in Massachusetts, Yale in Connecticut, and 
Princeton in New-Jersey, stand highest in numbers and 
reputation. Harvard is the most munificently endowed 
of all the American colleges ; the people of Boston 
wisely considering that the encouragement of sound 
literature is one of the main supports of national great- 
ness and elevation. It has thirteen professorships, and 
affords a w^ider range of liberal instruction than any 
other college in the United States. Yale owes its high 
eminence to the exertions of its late president. Doctor 
Dwight, who, perhaps more than any man of his age, 
united in himselfgi eat -talents, extensive learning, steady 
authority, affectionate regard, and practical wisdom, to 
discern time and circumstance, and convert every thing 
to the advantage of the institution which he governed, 
and the pupils whom he instructed. Columbia College 
ought to equal, if not surpass, every other college in the 
Union. Its outline of study, prescribed by the statutes, 
is excellent; and it is situated in the heart of the most 
populous and opulent city in the United States at pre- 
sent, and which possesses the greatest capacities oi fu- 
ture increase; and, yet, it numbers but one hundred 
students, while Princeton has two, Yale three, and Har- 
vard four hundred. 

Scarcely any systematic lectures on moral philosophy, 
metaphysics, political economy, history, belles lettres. 
and rhetoric, are delivered in our collejjes. I know but 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 32^9 

of two instances ; those of Doctor Smith, late President 
of Princeton, on " moral and political philosophy ;" and 
those of Mr. John Qulncy Adams, now Secretary of 
State, on " belles lettres and rhetoric," when he was 
professor at Harvard. Mr. Adams's lectures contain 
an abundance of useful learning, well collected, and 
many able observations and inferences; but the style is 
occasionally too inflated and mysterious. Those of 
Doctor Smith are excellent so far as relates to the ethi- 
cal part ; but the lecturer not being either a civilian or 
political economist, the two great branches of political 
philosophy, and the law of nations, are very slightly 
touched. In the European colleges these subjects have 
employed the ablest talents; and Doctor Ferguson's 
" Moral Science," Dr. Smith's " Wealth of Nations," 
Mr. Tytlcr's (Lord Woodhouselee's,) " Elements of 
History," Professor Millar's " Origin of Ranks," and 
Mr. Dugald Stuart's " Elements of the Phllosopy of 
the Human Mind ;" all the substance of lectures deliver- 
ed by their respective authors, are among the most in- 
structive and interestlns: works ever delivered to the 
world. Perhaps no want is more urgent in our colleges 
than that of a course of lectures on history; of which, 
whether general, as of the world at large, or of particu- 
lar countries, the Americans, men, women, and children. 
are lamentably ignorant. 

One reason, perhaps, why lectures are so seldom de- 
livered on great general subjects, in tiie American col- 
leges, is the incessant tendency of the clergy to monopo- 
lize the professors' chairs. This is the case with all the 
clerical denominations, according to their ascendancy in 
the various colleges, whether Episcopalian, or Presby- 
terian, or Independent, or Baptist. During the dark 
ages of feudal Europe, there was some excuse for the 
ecclesiatical monopoly of education, because tlie very 
little learning then afloat was confined to the clergy ; 
but as soon as the European laity had learned to read 
and write, this monopoly ceased; and laymen pro'duced 
such lectures on moral philosophv, political economy, 
metaphysics, and historjs as the combined clergy of 

42 



mMj^jt0;u w 'tm %mi 






/ vf ^ 



I/Mr ' <wvi |/ 






S 

s 



vvu» 



y 



332 KLSOURCES Ot 1 Ht L'MTED STATES. 

tation of emphasis, precision and fulness of delivery, the 
loftiest sentiments, the most powerful reasonings, the 
tenderest touches of feeling, the most animated flashes 
of real eloquence, are to the unfortunate audience tame 
and unimpressive. 

The ancient Greeks and Romans, in the host days 
of their republics, made the study of elocution an essen- 
tial part of liberal education. Many years were devo- 
ted to learning, in the schools of rhetoric, the rules and 
elements of appropriate and energetic delivery. Nei- 
ther Demosthenes nor Cicero would have deemed him- 
self qualified to appear as a public speaker at the bar, 
or in the Senate, until he had diligently studied the 
means of obtaining a prompt, easy, apt, and forceful ut- 
terance. But the scholars, and great men of modern 
Christendom have, in general, been too negligent of 
their delivery, both in reading and speaking. Whence, 
it is not uncommon to hear, from the pulpit, at the bar, 
and in the Senate, orations, full of learning, argument, 
and eloquence, so marred in the enunciation as nearly 
to destroy their effect. The public speaking and read- 
mg of the present day is too often disgraced, either by 
a drawling, drivelling monotony, or a quick, indistinct, 
sing-song cadence. The whole law of eloquence is 
comprised in a single sentence ; " gravitas sententiarum, 
i-plendor verborum, proprietas actionis ;" — weight of 
sense, splendour of language, and aptness of delivery. 
The three requisites of good delivery, or elocution, are 
a clear and distinct articulation of every word, syllable, 
and letter; an adaptation of the various inflections and 
intonations of the voice to the various sense and feeling 
of what is spoken or read, and the following of the ac- 
tion or gesture, as a faithful expositor of the feeling and 
sense exhibited by the reader and speaker. 

But what a difference is generally exhibited between 
the easy, various, apt, energetic, and natural tones of 
animated conversation, and tne stiff, constrained, mono- 
tonous, vapid, and unnatural sounds emitted in public 
reading and speaking. Children almost universally are 
taught to read in a different manner, and to use different 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 333 

tones, cadences, pauses, and emphases from those which 
nature dictates by the impulses of feehng and passion 
in unconstrained conversation. And this artificial, un- 
natural method, is either inculcated or tolerated in the 
recitals, public speakings, readings, and declamations of 
schools and colleges. These reading and speaking 
tones are seldom more than two ; one, marking, that 
the sense is not quite completed, the other, that the 
sentence is closed. The first one consists of a uniform 
elevation., the second of a uniform depression of voice. 
Hence arises the unnatural and monotonous manner of 
reading and speaking which is so prevalent, and which 
habit only renders more inveterate and incurable. The 
only effectual remedy would be, to make the study of 
elocution an essential part of liberal education. At 
present, the rudiments of delivery are generally taught 
by unintelligent dames, and old women, or illiterate 
men, who are quite ignorant of the general principles 
and practical rules of elocution. And, when boys thus 
initiated into the mysteries of bad reading are transfer- 
red to the grammar-school, the matter is not mended. 
For the teachers are too much absorbed in drilling their 
young recruits in construing and parsing, to pay any 
attention to the manner in which they read and speak 
their own vernacular tongue. We are not then to mar- 
vel, that a thick and indistinct, a monotonous, drawling- 
and vapid elocution is so general. 

Next to the acquisition of that primary requisite ot 
good delivery, a clear, distinct, and forcible arliadation. 
the student should labour to obtain a proper pronuncia- 
tion^ or the most approved method of sounding words, 
including the intonation and inflexion of the voice, the 
accent and emphasis. An awkward pronunciation, a 
bad management of the voice, the pitching too high or 
too low a key-note, speaking too loudly, or feebly, to 
be distinctly heard, the use of harsh"^ intonations, of 
false, uncertain, irregular cadences and emphases, are 
the peculiar imperfections of particular classes of men 
in every community, and spring from a faulty education, 
vulgar society, low examples, inveterate habits, and 



334 IILSOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

provincial barbarisms. The difference of pronunciation, 
between different men, relates to bodies rather than 
individuals, whether inhabitants of the same or different 
countries. For instance, the English, Irish, and Scot- 
tish, have each their own pecuhar idiom in pronouncing 
the English tongue; and also the different provinces 
and counties of each of those nations have a peculiar 
dialect; whence, not only do the Scottish, Irish, and 
English differ from each other in the pronunciation of 
the same language, but the Aberdeen dialect is scarcely 
intelligible to a man of Edinburgh ; that of Dublin to 
the people of Belfast; that of Cornwall to the cockneys 
in Loncfon. The great object, therefore, is to discover 
the standard pronunciation of a country. In every en- 
tire, consolidated sovereignty, the seat of governmeni 
or court fixes and regulates that standard. The Court 
at Paris is the model for all those who aspire to speak 
French exquisitely ; the Court of Madrid is the pattern 
of Spanish pronunciation ; that of Berlin regulates the 
pronunciation of the north, as the Cabinet of Vienna 
does that of the south of Germany; the government 
circle in London gives the tone of pronunciation to all 
those in the British Isles who profess to b^e liberally 
educated and well-bred. All other idioms or dialects 
are considered as tokens of a low and defective educa- 
tion, and, as such, disgraceful. This standard pronun- 
ciation being, in its minuter niceties, continually fluc- 
tuating with the fluctuations of the manners and fashions 
of the age, cannot easily be taught by written or printed 
rules, but can be acquired only by habits of inter- 
course and conversation with those who have been thus 
liberally trained. 

These observations, however, do 7iot apply to the 
United States, where there is no standard pronunciation 
of the English language. For America not being a 
consolidated sovereignty, but a confederacy of independ- 
ent States, no one State or portion of the Union can ar- 
rogate to itself the privilege of fixing the standard by 
which every well-bred American sliall regulate his pro- 
nunciation. Massachusetts will not implicitly follow the 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



335 



government pronunciation of New-Orleans, or Georgia, 
or the Carolinas, or Virginia, or Maryland ; nor will 
New- York pride itself in copying the court enunciation 
of New-Jersey, or Pennsylvania, or Ohio, or Kentucky, 
or Tennessee, or Indiana, or Mississippi. And still less, 
will any of these republican sovereignties suffer the fe- 
deral city of Washington to prescribe the courtly stand- 
ard of pronunciation. Nor do the separate States look 
to their own seats of government as the models of pro- 
nunciation. The people of New-York are not anxious 
to adopt the mode used by their Governor, Senators, 
and Representatives, convened at Albany ; nor are the 
gentlemen of Philadelphia ambitious to copy the govern- 
ment enunciation of Lancaster or Harrisburgh. 

Nevertheless, there is a greater uniformity in the 
pronunciation of English, and less diversity of dialects, 
idioms, and provincialisms, in the United States, than in 
England, Ireland, or Scotland. The people of Georgia 
and Massachusetts, of Connecticut and Virginia, of New- 
York and Kentucky, approximate much nearer to each 
other's pronunciation, than do the natives of York and 
Devon, of Dublin and Donaghadee, of Edinburgh and 
Inverness. Some of the reasons for this great equality 
of American pronunciation are, that the United States 
were chiefly settled by Englishmen, in the times of Eli- 
zabeth, .Tames the first, and the two Charleses. These 
first settlers, particularly in New-England, were gene- 
rally people of some education, as well as of strong re- 
ligious /ce/z/*^ ; and therefore less likely to be infected 
with the peculiar dialects, and provincial idioms of the 
places whence they emigrated. The Americans also, 
are a very enterprising locomotive people ; the inhabit- 
ants of the different States intercommunicate much with 
each other, and consequently assimilate in the pronun- 
ciation of that vernacular tongue common to them all. 
And their having no national standard induces them 
to look to that of England for their model ; with this 
advantage, that whereas in England, every diffluent 
county has a different dialect, the United States escape 
fhe importation of these, and follow as nearly as they 



336 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES 



can, the best English standard, by the help of approved 
written rules and regulations, and the personal inter- 
course of some of their most intelligent citizens, with 
the best society in the British metropolis. 

The question has been much debated, whether mo- 
dern nations should pronounce Greek and Latin accord- 
ing to the analogies of their own living languages; or 
establish a uniform pronunciation, that of the Greeks 
and Romans themselves. The great objection to a plan 
of universal pronunciation is, that we know very little, 
as to what was the Greek and Roman pronunciation. 
Scholars, to this day, are much divided in opinion upon 
this subject; and at least, until their discussions can be 
adjusted, may not the English continue their own mode 
of pronouncing Greek and Latin, which is in full ac- 
cordance with the analogy of their own living tongue; 
even if it does not approximate in some few instances 
so nearly to the ancient pronunciation, as the Italian, 
French, German, and Scottish modes .-^ For wo have 
no means of asccrtainins: how the Greeks and Romans 
actually pronounced the great proportion of their lan- 
guages; and we do know, that all their idioms and dia- 
lects, al) their nicer tones and varieties of inflexion, have 
perished for ever. 

The Americans speak English all over the union, yet 
read Greek and Lntin with the Scottish pronunciation. 
The reason of this anomaly is, that although English is 
their mother-tongue, yet, ever since the country has 
been settled, the dead languages have been generally 
taught by Scottish schoolmasters and professors, who 
grafted their own motle of pruniuiciation upon the na- 
tive stock of English in the United States. The Scot- 
tish, as a people, are more generally educated than the 
English, and, consequently, being more enterprising, 
spread themselves, in greater numbers, as teachers, all 
over the world. The most universally intelligent, are 
always the most enterprising and industiious nations. 
The Scottish proimnciation of Greek and Latin more 
nearly resembles that of the French, Italians, Spaniards, 
and continental Europeans generally, than does the Eng- 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 337 

lish ; because the Scottish mode of pronouncing Enghsb 
bears a greater resemblance to the vernacular pronun- 
ciation of the European continent; Avhich mode is sup- 
j)osed also to approximate nearer than that of the Eng- 
lish, to the pronunciation of the ancient Greeks and 
Romans. 

But there appears to be no good reason why the' 
Americans, who, in general^ pronounce the Englisli lan- 
guage in greater purity than the people of England, 
should violate all the analogies of their own living pro- 
nunciation, and engraft into their classical utterance a fo- 
reign tone and accent, borrowed from the Scottish, whose 
idioms, intonations, and inflexions, are altogether alien 
from their own. Nor can this habit long continue in 
the United States ; for they will soon cease to look to 
Scotland for teachers of the dead languages. And 
when American scholars instruct the youth of this coun- 
try, they will, of course, follow the genius and character 
of their own language, whose analogies will eventually 
eradicate all the vestiges of Scottish pronunciation ; 
which, even now, does not pervade the union ; for at the 
colleges of Schenectady, in New-York, Princeton, in 
New-Jersey, and of New-England, generally, the stu- 
dents are taught to read and speak the classics after 
the English mode. 

The object to be acquired is, to ascertain the English- 
quantity, with which the vowels and consonants of the 
Greek and Latin languages are to be pronounced ; and 
then give utterance to these learned tongues, with the 
same distinct and manly articulation, the same bold and 
impressive intonations, the same force of emphasis and 
variety of cadence, with which the best English poets 
and prose writers are read and spoken. This, however, 
cannot be accomplished by the mere knowledge of the 
dead languages, but by an intimate acquaintance with 
the general analogies and floating usages of our own 
mother tongue. And in the nature of things, and the 
radical conformation of the human mind, these analogies 
must, always enter largely into the scholar's pronuncia- 
tion of the dead languages. And, in diet, every nation 

43 



338 RESOURCES or i riL united state.^. 

does pursue this course; the Scottish, French, Itahans, 
Germans, and Spaniards, all pronounce Greek and La- 
tin, accordinjx to the analoiries of their own livinsr 
tongues; and what reason can be assigned why the 
Americans and English, who both speak one common 
language, whose mother tongue is neither Spanish nor 
German, nor Italian, nor French, nor Scottish, should 
not be permitted to follow the same law of nature, rea- 
son, and liberty, in pronouncing the dead lan£;uages, 
according to the analogies of their own living idiom ? 
On what principle should a Frenchman or Scotchman 
undertake to teach an American or Englishman to read 
and speak Latin and Greek, with a French or Scottish 
pronunciation, which would not equally justify teaching 
the pupil to read and speak English with a French or 
Scottish pronunciation r Let then a Scotchman and 
Frenchman, as long as they continue to talk Scottish 
and French, follow the analogies of their own living 
tongues in pronouncing the dead languages, and also 
let the numerous and growing millions of America and 
England pronounce the classical tongues according to 
the general analogies and best usages of their own liv- 
ing language ; and cherish that English pronunciation, 
which has taken deep root, and sprung up aloft In their 
own native soil ; which is consrenial to the fi-ame and 
character of their lanfruajre ; which owes its orisrm to 
the habits and manners, the ideas, opinions, and senti- 
ments, the peculiarities, views, intelligence, and national 
achievements of the people. 

The custom which regulates the pronunciation of all 
living languages, is not made up altogether of the usage 
of the mere multitude of speakers In a community, 
counted numerically, and suffered to vote, per capita, for 
the standard of national utterance ; nor docs it spring 
entirely from the usages of the studious. In the recesses 
of their halls and colleges; nor docs it owe its origin to 
the unmlnglod efforts and effusions of the affluent, gay. 
and fashionable portion of society ; but is compounded 
of the usages of all these three classes of men. The 
learning of the scholars acts as a restraint and balance- 



RESOURCES OF THE UMTED STATES. 339 

wheel, alike upon the frivolous affectation and ever- 
shifting caprice of the wealthy and fashionable, and 
upon the illiterateness and ignorance of the multitude ; 
the refinement and delicacy of the well bred and po- 
lished curb, and diminish the pedantry of the mere scho- 
lar, and soften the rude, forward vulgarity of the unedu- 
cated and uninformed; while the plain, strong, home- 
bred, practical common sense of the industrious orders, 
erects a barrier of equal force against the light and airy 
incursions of fashion, and the ponderous attacks of la- 
borious scholarship. The Latin and Greek infusions of 
the schools, the nicer peculiarities of polished life, and 
the native provincialisms of the irregularly educated, 
must all be received and tolerated by each other, for a 
long time, and to a great extent, before they can grow 
up into that permanent general use, Avhich constitutes an 
established custom of pronunciation. 

The si vis mejlere^ etc, of Horace, is as applicable to 
teaching, as to dramatic enunciation ; and no lecturer 
will ever be able to render his labours either interesting 
or instructive to his pupils, if his manner be dull, cold, 
and forma! ; and his elocution monotonous, drawling, 
nasal, and vapid. The ingenuous ardour, or as the an- 
cients call it, the sacred fire of youth, can only be kept 
alive, and fanned into a brighter flame, by the kindred 
enthusiasm of the teacher, whose example as well as 
precept, is necessary to inspire the student with a love 
for letters. The enthusiasm of the head is genius, the 
enthusiasm of the heart is virtue ; and both lie at the 
foundation of all real greatness. The paramount ex- 
cellence of every instructer, consists in the ability, so 
happily to temper and combine the three several influ- 
ences of duty^ necessity^ and ambition^ as to make them 
all co-operate, in their respective stations and powers, to 
produce in his pupils confirmed habils of intellectual di- 
ligence. This once accomplished, his work is eflectu- 
ally done, for they will ever after, continue to enlarge 
the limits of their understanding, by vigilant observa- 
tion, by systematic reading, by patient reflection, by ra- 
tional conversation ; «o that all which they see, observe, 



340 KESOCRCES or THE rNTTtPSTATE? 

read, and hear, shall directlr tend to sharpen the senje 
o( ptrtrphoiu strengthen the power of asfociation. quick- 
en and render more retentive the memory, exercise and 
invigorale the Jwd^rmeni, deepen and enlnVjre the laciiliy 
of reoMMM^. and kindle all the Tires o( the tmo^nnancn 
into a brisr^ter and steadier bla2e. 

The course ot" lectures on h<lies lettres and rhetoric. 
should contain an inquirv into the elements of criticism 
on metaphysit^ principles, by which Aristotle's Poetics, 
the iraifment of Longinus on the sublime, and Quinc- 
tjlian's institutes, should be examined and tried. A cri- 
tical code of seneral ndes should be established, and 
iHnstrated by seiecticmsol'pessaees, remarkable for their 
senUment, or expression, or both, irom the best poets 
and prose writers, in the Greek, Latin, Eji^li^h* French, 
Italian, and Spanish lan£:ua<res. 

The course of lectures on moral philosophf^ should 
demonstrate, that all the systems of ethics, whether an- 
cient or modern, which are not based on revelation, are 
reducible to a calculation of individual expediency, for 
want of a suiiicieni sanction to enforce the observance 
of their rules and precepts ; >\ hereas the moral code 
revealed in the Scriptures, is applicable to all the condi- 
tions and circumstances of human lil'e. individual, do- 
r j^stic. and social. This should constitute the first great 
division of the subject : the second should consist of an 
outhne of political phihsoph/, and the attention be p>ar- 
ticulariy directed towards an investigntion of the means 
best adapted to render a nation permanently prosperous 
and powerftil. The third division should compreherKl 
an inquirv into the late of nations, as founded on the law 
of nature, on conventional, or treatv law. and on com- 
mon, orcustomarv law. It would require the labour oi 
several years, employed in general reading, and patieni 
thought, to improve and complete two such courses ol 
lectures : which would find verv imperlect substitutes, 
in the daily or weekly dole of a few pages o( Blair. 
Beattie, and A'attel. 

The few following might be some of the subjects 
which would admit of profitable discussion; namely. 



tStSOUtSCES OF TFre VUmO STATU* 



HI 



fint^ that the moral \mpu\-f^^ and f'n/e&r/ua/ cap^citifrs of 
everv human being, are ^>/ nature co-equal, and co-ordi- 
nate ; that is to saj, the sensibilities of the heart, and 
powers of the head, in everv beins"- are natnrallj equal 
m strength; a dull man having by the very constitution 
of his nature, slow and blunt feelings; andjrenius beings 
bj nature, endowed with quick and ardent sensibilities; 
and so, proportinally. through all the gradations o{ in- 
tellect, from the highest to the lowest order of minds. 
Fn after life, the moral and mental co-equality is seldom 
presened, owin^ to some persons cultivating their feel- 
ings more than tlieir understandings; while others im- 
prove their minds to the neglect, or at the expense of 
their moral impulses and emotions ; and, consequently, 
as all the human powers, whether phvsical. or intellec- 
tual- or moral, trrow in strencrth. or decav in weakness, 
as they are exercised or disused; the n-a/wrfl/ coequahtj 
of feelinsr and mind is deranged by the subsequent cul- 
tivation of the one. in an undue and disproportioDate 
preference to the other. 

Secondly. That the possession and displav of g^reat in- 
tellect does not necessarily irnplv the exercise or pos- 
session of moral virtue. For. if it did, individuals and 
nations would be just and upricrhi. precisely in propor- 
tion to the quantity of their talent and informatioo : and 
communities and persons would bevitious and prodi^fate 
in the direct ratio of their dulness and ignorance ; propo- 
sitions which are contradicted by the unilbrm experi- 
ence of fact and history. 

lliirdly. An inquiry should be made into the compa- 
rative mind of the ancients and modems. This question 
has been agitated by the learned in Europe, ever since 
the revival of letters. One sect of scholars has contend- 
ed that the ancients excel the modems in all the attri- 
butes of genius, while another maintains the superiority 
of the modems. In the last century a third heresy 
sprung up amidst the European philosophers and scho- 
lars, who, at that time, as they supposed, discovered 
the secret of man's perfectibility : which doctrine, if true, 
decides the question ; for if the human race be growino: 



342 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES 

Wiser anf] wiser, every succeeding generation, in its pro- 
gress towards perfection, of course the ancients were 
mere children, as to talents and acquisitions, in compa- 
rison with modern wise men ; and the pohticians, war- 
riors, poets, historians, orators, and philosophers of 
Greece and Rome, are, by several centuries, inferior to 
the corresponding classes of men who protect, adorn, 
and guide the present era of illumination. By pushing 
the two first theories to their legitimate extremes, their 
inconclusiveness will appear: for, on the supposition 
that the ancients were superior in capacity to the mo- 
derns, the world has only to grow to a certain age, 
when all the human beings in it will be mere drills and 
changelings, if mind diminishes every succeeding gene- 
ration ; and on the supposition that the moderns excel 
the ancients in talent, the converse result will be pro- 
duced, and the nearer we travel up to the conmience- 
ment of the creation, the more certainly we approximate 
to a race of idiots and dunces. 

It should therefore be shown, both by reasoning, a 
priori, from certain undisputed elementary principles of 
metaphysics, and also by a general induction from par- 
ticular facts, that neither of these three opinions is cor- 
rect; but, that although individuals differ from each 
other in amount of native talent, yet large masses of 
men, as whole communities, average an equality of na- 
tural capacity, in all ages and countries. How far that 
natural capacity shall be developed into active power 
and display, must, of course, depend upon the existing 
circumstances of the age and country in which it ap- 
pears ; as the form and spirit of government, systems of 
education, character of the people, and all those predo- 
minating influences which stamp the family features and 
direct the destinies of nations. In examining this ques- 
tion, an inquiry should be made into the best means of 
securing for the public service a succession^ regularly 
continued from age to age, of able men, in all the high 
departments of the State, political, military, and literary. 
And, in particular, should be explored the causes which 
accelerate or retard the growth of mind in these Uni- 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES 343 

te(5 States, so far as It is employed in the pursuit of poli- 
tics, literature, art, and science. 

Fourthly. An analysis of the political history of the 
world should be made, with a view to ascertain how far 
anv nation, ancient or modern, has approximated in its 
social institutions towards the union of the three great 
requisites of a good government ; namely, the personal 
liberty of the people, strong and permanent power in 
the hands of the executive, and an ample developement 
of the national mind, by a system of comprehensive, 
liberal education. 

Fifthly. An inquiry should be made Into the elemen- 
tary principles and practical exhibition of eloquence, 
both oral and written ; In the course of which the best 
writers of Greece, Rome, Italy, France, and England, 
should be analyzed, and their happiest effusions pointed 
out, as Illustrations of the general rules laid down. 
These few subjects, with some others which might be 
named, if properly discussed and exemplified, would 
very materially tend to lay the foundation of intellectual 
excellence, broad and deep, in the student's mind. 

In our colleges, the mathematics are generally well 
taught ; but not so, either the classics, or metaphysics, 
or belles lettres and rhetoric, or moral philosophy, in- 
cluding the three branches of ethics, pohtical economy, 
and national law. 

The study of metaphysics Is eminently useful in sharp- 
ening, brightening, and strengthening the faculties of 
the mind, by accustoming It to the process of analysis, 
the exercise of abstraction, recollection, arrangement, 
careful inquiry into the springs and sources of human 
passions, character, and conduct. And, In addition to 
opening the best roads for the judicious direction and 
management of the understanding, the science of mind 
is kindred to, and prepares the way for the investiga- 
tion of other important sciences. The only certain 
foundation of philology and criticism rests upon a 
knowledge of metaphysics, which enable us to examine 
and classify the ideas that words represent, to give 
precision and force to language, and to ascertain the 



344 



RESOLRCES OF THE I'.MTED STATES. 



sources of tlie emotions raised ulthin our bosoftis, by 
the contemplation of sublime or beautiful objects, 
whether belonging to the material world, or the off- 
spring of moral magnificence and loveliness. Moral 
philosophy owes its existence to metaphysical investiga- 
tion, which explores and analyzes those feelings, affec- 
tions, passions, and sentiments of the heart, which it is 
the business of morals to regulate and guide. No moral 
writer can clear even the threshold of nis science, with- 
out the aid of metaphysics. Even political economy 
derives light and direction in its pursuits, and endea- 
vours to promote the well-being of states from the in- 
sight which metaphysics afford into the nature of indi- 
vidual man, seeing that the multiplication of these indi- 
duals constitutes tne living materials of that state which 
the political economist labours to adorn and aggran- 
dize. 

Neither the mathematics nor the physical sciences are 
well adapted to develope the faculties of youth. In 
early life the study of mathematics exercises only the 
mechanism of the understanding ; and children who are 
early doomed to the drudgery of casting calculations, 
and eternally working in figures and algebraic signs, 
bury in everlasting forgetfulness all the fine and fertile 
seeds of imagination, which in that vernal season of ex- 
istence, under a more liberal culture, would spring up 
into a lofty stem, wave its luxuriant branches in the air, 
display the rich beauty of its blossoms, and ripen into 
an abundance of fragrant fruit. Nor are the destruc- 
tion of all fancy and the prevention of all taste counter- 
balanced by any transcendent accuracy of mind; for 
arithmetic, algebra, and mathematics only make us 
acquainted, in many different forms, with a few simple 
propositions always the same. Demonstrated truths do 
not show us the way to those that are probable and 
contingent, and which alone can direct our steps in the 
active Dusiness of practical life, in the prosecution of the 
arts, in the intercourse of society. This, doubtless, 
applies only to the common labours in the mathematical 
trenches; for invention in this science, as in every othei 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 345 

pursuit, is the felicitous result of excited genius. But 
of the thousands, who pore over the beaten track of 
mathematics, how many exhibit either sense or reason 
in the important transactions of life ? To those who 
are not inventors, this study affords the means of un- 
folding only one faculty, that of reasoning closely and 
conclusively upon given premises ; it confers no power 
of taking ground, and laying down premises on which to 
build up a system of prompt, various, inductive reason- 
ing. A dull man may make a good mathematician, but 
by no possibility a good classical scholar. 

It is the province of liberal education to develope and 
improve all the faculties of the mind, and to cultivate 
and improve the whole moral being ; which desirable 
purpose is best accomplished by the study of language^ 
as the chief object of instruction, attended, indeed, and 
aided by the cultivation of the arts and sciences, but 
itself the primary pursuit. The study of language is 
peculiarly fitted to render the faculty of associating 
similar and simple ideas, or of combining various and 
dissimilar images more facile and rapid. By attributing 
definite ideas to arbitrary signs and conventional sounds, 
and by forming abstract and general, when particular 
and definite notions cannot be obtained, the powers of 
association and imagination, like all the other faculties, 
must, by exercise and use, be greatly strengthened. 
Add to which, by increasing the rapidity and strength 
of the associative faculty, the study of language im- 
proves the capacity of reasoning, increases the bril- 
liancy of wit, and brightens the blaze of imagination ; 
whence all the mental powers are enabled to work with 
greater promptness and effect upon every subject of 
human inquiry submitted to their cognizance and con- 
sideration. 

But, above all the dead languages, the Greek and 
Latin tongues should be more especially studied, as 
conducive to the great end of liberal education; not 
only because they contain some of the highest flights of 
genius, but also because they have a greater accuracy, 
a more philosophical precision ihan any livinii:, floating. 

14 



346 RESOURCES OF THE UMTED STATES. 

continually shifting language can possess. By paying 

Ijarticular attention to tiie study of these two mestima- 
)le languages, from the first dawning of academic iri- 
struction to the close of life, the mind is quickened, 
strenghtened, and rendered clear and luminous in all its 
views. It is from the long experience of their utility 
that the study of these languages has been made the 
basisof all the establishments ot liberal education which 
have trained up so many profound and accomplished 
scholars in Europe. 

All tlie qualities and elements united In language arc 
gradually comprehended by the student, while engaged 
m translating from one tongue into another. All his 
faculties are improved by the process of mastering the 
peculiar idioms of two different languages at the same 
time. He is compelled, by the very nature of his study, 
to make himself acquainted with the several ideas pre- 
sented by the words he reads in regular succession ; to 
compare and combine different sorts of analogies and 
probabilities offered to his consideration in the opinions, 
sentiments, and propositions that he peruses. The 
number of faculties which this study awakens at the 
same time, ensures it the pre-eminence over evcry^other 
species of instruction. It quickens the power of per- 
ception, by accustoming the mind to discern the nicer 
peculiarities of Idiomatic language in different tongues ; 
it gives speed and force to the faculty of association, by 
presenting various shades of difference in the ideas ex- 
pressed by words, similar or synonymous, in different 
languages ; it renders the memory strong and retentive, 
by exercising it constantly in the recollection of new 
"words and images; it deepens and strengthens the 
judgment, by continually soliciting its decisions on the 
more exquisite models of taste and beauty in composi- 
tion which the gieat writers of antiquity have left ; it 
invigorates and enlarges the capacity of reasoning, by 
perpetually requiring a train of argument upon the va- 
rious questions in ethics and politics, started by the 
ancients, under very peculiar aspects of the human 
mind ; it brightens and renders more intensely splendid 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 347 

the imagination, bj introducing it to an intimate ac- 
quaintance with the finest specimens of poetry and elo- 
quence, precisely at that period in the history of man 
when they were most eagerly and successfully cultivated. 

But further, the appropriate subject of the best por- 
tion of classical learning, the study of the poets, historians, 
orators, and philosophers of Greece and Rome, is the 
investigation and improvement of our moral nature; the 
feelings, passions, plans of action, hidden springs, and 
various movements of our being. The most exalted 
wisdom, the most sound, practical common sense of 
social life, in its highest refinement, is drawn from the 
springs of Helicon and the fountains of Parnassus, from 
the groves of Academus, and from the schools of the 
Portico and Lyceum. All narrow and single systems 
of education are bad; but if any one branch of learning 
deserves pre-eminence, it is that which induces an ha- 
bitual contemplation of ourselves and of our common 
nature, in a close acquaintance with which men must 
always feel a deeper interest and possess a larger stake, 
than in the lines and diao-rams of tlie mathematician, the 
retorts and alembics of the chymist, or any combination 
of material substances, which the natural philosopher 
may explore. It is far better, however, that the study 
of the classics should be accompanied with that of all 
the sciences, in order to impart a course of full and 
accomplished education. 

It might, perhaps, be of some utility to sketch a very 
brief outline of the system of instruction pursued in the 
schools and colleges of England, that the people of the 
United States might know how far classical literature is 
prized in the land of their fathers, and learn, themselves, 
to set a higher value upon it than they have hitherto 
done. I^et us instance the three great public schools of 
Eton^ Westminster^ and Winchester , as leading the van of 
English liberal education. At these schools a boy stays 
until he is eighteen; before he reaches which period he is 
expected to be able to read, ad aperturam libri, Virgil, 
Horace, Terence, Cicero, and Livy; Homer, Demos- 
thenes, Longinus, Aristophanes, and the Greek Trage- 



348 RESOURCES OF T[IE UNITED STATES. 

dians, to compose, readily, and abundantly, and con- 
stantly, in English verse and prose, and in Latin verse 
and prose ; and, occasionally, in Greek verse and prose ; 
to make Latin epigrams extempore, to declaim in Latin, 
to write Latin critiques on a given book of Homer, or 
play in Aristophanes, oriEschylus, or Sophocles, or Eu- 
ripides; to have the finest passages of" the Greek and 
Latin classics always afloat in the memory, and ready 
for apt citation and allusion. In the English universities 
these studies are prosecuted on a wider scale, and with 
the additional pursuits of maliiematics, natural philoso- 
phy, history, moral philosophy, lo^ic, belles lettres, 
rhetoric, and municipal law. Cambridge is supposed to 
be peculiarly partial to mathematical, and Oxford to 
classical studies ; but at both, the system of instruction 
is ample and highly liberal. At two and tiventy they 
graduate, and after this, (except in the church, whose 
order of deacon is taken at three and twenty ^^ they begin 
to study for the learned professions of law and physic. 
This is the general course in England and Ireland, 
which produce the most finished scholars in Europe. 
Trinity College, in Dublin, has long been celebrated for 
its great proficiency in all classical attainments. The 
English and Irish, generally, continue their acquaintance 
with the classics in after-life. 

In Scotland the boys learn no Greek at school, which 
they leave at twelve, when they enter the university, and 
graduate at sixteen ; so that classical literature is not 
much cultivated. A few years since, indeed, the study 
of prosody, and the composition of Latin verse were in- 
troduced into the high school of Edinburgh. But the 
pi'incipal studies among the Scottish are moral philoso- 
phy, political economy, public law, and metaphysics. 

It is an old objection of Mr, Locke, but bandied about 
the United States with as much eager triumph as if it 
were botii novel and wise, ••' that it is foolish to require 
boys to compose in verse, if we do not wish to make 
them poets." The answer is, — that boys are required 
to make verses, not in order to become poets, but to ob- 
tain a more complete acquaintance with and dominion 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 349 

over the language, in which they compose. Let any 
one make the experiment, and he will find that he must 
pass more thought through his brain, and a greater 
abundance and selection of expression in composing 
twenty lines of verse, in whatever language, than in 
writing four times the same quantity of prose. Lord 
Mansfield was not disqualified for being one of the 
greatest lawyers, statesmen, and orators, the world ever 
saw, because all his life, even after he was eighty^ he used 
to write Latin verses, in the various rythms, nearly 
equal to the best poetry of the Augustan age. Nor was 
Sir William Jones a less profound jurist and philosopher, 
because he Avas an accomplished versifier in the English, 
Latin, and Greek languages. 

It is too prevalent a fashion in the United States to 
consider all classical^ nay, all general education, at an end, 
as soon as a boy leaves college, at the age of eighteen, 
when he begins to prepare himself for becoming a mer- 
chant, who is supposecl not to stand in need of any lite- 
rature; or a clergyman, or physician, or lawyer, who 
are deemed to want nothing more than a mere know- 
ledge of theology, medicine, or law. In addition to 
which, it is thought prodigious wisdom to rail at all stu- 
dious habits, and talk loudly about trusting to the ener>- 
gies of native genius, which must not be stifled by por- 
ing over books." The consequence is, that the Latin 
of our college boys soon becomes threadbare, and their 
Greek quite worn out. 

When Demosthenes was reproached by a fopling of 
his day, that his orations smelt of the lamp, he replied, 
" true, there is some difference between what you and I 
do by lamp-light." To derive all from native genius, to 
owe nothing to others, to scorn to look at objects through 
the spectacles of books, is the praise which many men 
who think httle, and talk much, dehght to bestow upon 
themselves and their kindred favourites. But no one in 
his senses would wish to exclude the student from an 
acquaintance with the works of others; for if it were 
possible, and men were forbidden to avail themselves of 
the labours of their predecessors, each succeeding gene- 



3j0 resources of the united states. 

lation would be obliged to begin anew their researches 
into the first rudiments of knowledge ; and mankind 
for ever remain in merely an infantile state, as to all the 
purposes of improvement : that man being, as Cicero 
observes, only a child in understanding, who is ignorant 
of the transactions and events, the opinions and disco- 
veries, of those who have gone before him. The truth 
is, the repeated perusal of the heroes of literature, as 
Longinus calls them, is of absolute necessity in the first 
years of study, and of immense importance in after life. 
Nor will it enfeeble the mind and prevent its exhibition 
of originality. Invention, doubtless, is the great charac- 
teristic of genius ; but men learn to invent, by being 
conversant with the inventions of others ; as they learn 
to think, by reading the thoughts of others. 

Whoever has so far formed his taste, as to contem- 
plate with delight, and feel deeply the excellences of 
great writers, has already studied to considerable eiTcct. 
Quinctilian says, that to take real pleasure in reading 
Cicero is one of the most unequivocal marks of genius 
a student can exhibit. For, merely from a conscious- 
ness of delighting in what is excellent, the mind is ele- 
vated, and roused to an eflfort at resembling what it 
admires. The inventions of preceding writers are not 
only the best nourishment of infant genius; but also the 
most substantial supply of energy and animation to ma- 
ture talents. The most powerful mind is, in itself, but 
a barren soil, soon exhausted, if left to repeat often the 
periodical growth of its own native vegetation; a soil 
Avhich will produce only a few scanty crops, unless con- 
tinually fertilized with the abundant addition of foreign 
manure. 

Nevertheless, it is gravely asserted by many, and 
practically enforced by the example of more, that clas- 
sical literature and general information are injurious to 
professional men;- that those make the best divines who 
know nothing but the peculiarities of their own secta- 
rian theology ; that those are the most expert physi- 
cians who peruse only the prevailing systems of the 
nosology of the day ; that those are the soundest law- 



liESOimCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 35] 

yers whose whole reading Is confined to the points, 
cases, and practice of law. But error has her gray 
hairs as well as truth. The real inference is, that he 
who professes to know nothing but his own scheme of 
divinity, or the existing system of medicine, or the mere 
technicalities of law, is not a sound theologian, or able 
physician, or profound lawyer; because it displays 
either dulness or idleness, or both, for one to pass 
through life without acquiring general information. In- 
deed idleness^ long continued, produces nearly the same 
effects as dulness, by blunting the powers of genius it- 
self; since man holds all his natural faculties, physical^ 
intellectual, and moral, only upon this conditional tenure, 
that by exercise they are all strengthened and enlarged ; 
by disuse all weakened and diminished. 

Were Luther, and Calvin, and Horseley, less pro- 
foundly skilled in their own peculiar systems of theolo- 
gy than the most ignorant clergymen of their respect- 
ive sects, because they were also learned in all the 
learning of their times.'* Were Friend, and Boerhaave, 
and Haller, and Heberden, less expert in the healing 
art than the most ignorant, impudent, and murderous 
empiric, because they were eminently distinguished as 
general scholars, in addition to being most accomplished 
physicians } Were Bacon, and Hale, and Mansfield, 
and Jones, less able, and less profound, as jurists, than 
the most illiterate, narrow-minded, pettifogging attor- 
ney, because they had assiduously strengthened and 
adorned the stupendous power of their original genius 
by a vast and varied acquaintance v»'ith the recondite 
depths of science, the exquisite refinements of art, and 
the dazzling splendours of erudition? It were indeed a 
consummation devoutly to be wished, that our Ameri- 
can students, following the foot-tracks of these illustri- 
ous examples, would prefer to herding in the dark and 
dismal abodes of the antagonists of learning, to what- 
ever profession they may belong, the directing of their 
devoted, though distant, gaze and admiration towards 
the regions of the sun, where shine in unborrowed kis- 



352 KESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

tre the great poets, liistoiians, orators, statesmen, and 
philosophers of the world : 



• dSi t'' Hovi ti^iyeviieti; 



In every profession various kinds of learning arc emi- 
nently useful, although to common, slow understandings, 
they do not appear to bear any very close relation to 
their particular calling; and various general information 
always tends to quicken the power of penetration, and 
strengthen the judgment. A mind, liberally cultivated, 
has an extensive intellectual grasp, which seizes at 
once, as by intuition, every argument that bears fairly 
on the question ; and thus ensures accuracy and stabili- 
ty to all its serious deliberations, and mature conclusions. 
But a narrow understanding (and all ignorance in its 
very nature, and ex vi termini^ implies narrowness of 
^he understanding,) being unacquainted with elementa- 
ry principles, and general truths, is confused and per- 
plexed by every ordinary occurrence, and is busied only 
m managing little points, and raising quibbling objec- 
tions, that cannot stand a moment against the direct ar- 
tillery of that able, well-applied, comprehensive reason- 
ing, which is ever the legitimate result, and sure reward, 
of time diligently employed in laying the broad basis of 
a liberal education. 

Ignorance is the greatest of all evils, because it tends 
to auo-raent and perpetuate every other evil, by pre- 
cluding the possible entrance of all good. Its fatal in- 
fluence, not only indisposes the mind to exertions for its 
own deliverance, but also excites a malignant opposition 
to every eflfort to enlighten mankind. Men love this 
darkness rather than light, because it conceals the di- 
mensions of danger, favours the slumber of indolence, 
and soothes the dreams of folly. And so completely 
does long-continued ignorance tend to disqualify the mind 
for improvement, that it is only in the earlier stages of 
life, that it is capable of being trained by the patient 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 353 

process of education, to habits of intelligence. It is 
vain to endeavour to operate any great moral change, 
or intellectual improvement on the full-grown population 
of any community. Their characters are fixed ; their 
faculties have ceased to be progressive ; the range of 
their ideas has already taken the form and pressure, the 
hue, and colouring, and direction, of their previous edu- 
cation ; and cannot tolerate any innovation upon their 
long cherished prejudices, and circumscribed customs. 
It is with youth, nay, with childhood, the labours of the 
preceptor must begin ; for to them in a great measure, 
IS the successful prosecution of intellectual and moral 
culture conf/ned. " He (observes Dr. Johnson,) who 
voluntarily continues in ignorance, when he may be in- 
structed, is guilty of all the crimes and follies which ig- 
norance produces; as to him who extinguishes the night 
fires of a beacon, are justlv to be imputed all the cala- 
mities of the shipwreck occasioned by the darkness." 
It is by the diffusion of general information alone, that 
the understanding can be improved in all its faculties ; 
that the thoughts which now only occasionally appear 
lo the secluded speculations of a few solitary thinkers, 
can be communicated from intellect to intellect, concen- 
trated in strength, and brightened in reflected splendour; 
so that an uninterrupted chain of progressive improve- 
ment may unite together all the intelligent minds of an 
enlightened community. 

The rythm of the Latin language is entirely disre- 
garded ; and in this free country, we murder prosody ad 
libitum. Our gravest divines, most learned physicians, 
profound lawyers, and celebrated professors, talk fami- 
liarly of " Aristides^^'' of " Herodotus,''^ of suing " in 
forma pauperis <,'''' o[ the writ ^''facias habere possessionem,'''' 
and so forth. The excuse for this systematic rebellion 
against all metre, was for a long time found in the fact 
that our Scottish teachers neglected all prosody ; this 
apology must cease now, because some years since, the 
proper metrical pronunciation of the classics >^as intro- 
duced, as part of its system of education, into the high 
school at Edinburgh : and that celebrnt^d seminary now 

If) 



354 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATE* 



produces prize poems in Latin Hexameters. Mr. Burke 
might liavc tliundered his '•'•magimm vecfigul est parsimo- 
niii^''^ into the ears of" an American adminibtiation, with- 
out offending their nicer classical organs, or hearing 
both from tfie treasury and the opposition benches, the 
portentous sound of " tlgal, tlgal,'''' echoing through all 
the house, until his premeditated speech was prema- 
turely brought to a close. 

It would be considered a sure token of a low and 
vulgar education, if an American were to mis-pronounce 
every English word he uttered, and make all the long 
syllables short, and all the short syllables long ; and it 
is not less offensive to hear the Latin and Greek lanffua- 
ges treated in the same barbarous manner; to observe 
the quantity of every word in Homer and Virgil, in 
Demosthenes and Cicero, regularly assassinated by men 
who call themselves scholars. To confess the truth 
however, our free-born citizens are apt to take as much 
liberty with the rythm of their mother tongue, as with 
that of the dead languages ; and we daily hear, from 
the pulpit, in the Senate, and at the bar, of '■^percmp- 
ifory," ''''territory^'''' ^'' dormitory*,''^ ''''legislature^^'' ''^ genu- 
trie,," " sanguine,'^'' kc* The late Mr. Gouverneur Mor- 
ris, one of the ablest and most eloquent men whom the 
world has produced, in an inaugural discourse to the 
New York Historical Society, condescended to use 
some splendid sophistry, in order to prove that poetry 
and rythm are unworthy the attention of America, 
because steamboats are useful to the community. 
The language of the orator is lofty, but we might ask 
whether or not his judgment would have been as sound, 
and his imagination as well disciplined, if he himself had 
been a classical scholar; and whether or not England 

* Note, that this page, instancins; the neglect of prosody, was 
hani'ed to me without a single tuiirk to donole the quantity of the syl- 
lahles which our American scholars so regularly mis-pronounce. 
Upon iii'^uiring the caiis^;, I was informed, that they had no such 
marks, anfl the prcsM cvas stopped till the type-founder could cast 
theiu. And thir prinling-ofiicc is one of the fust and most respectable 
in the United Stales. 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES, 355 

is inferior to other nations in the inventions of art, and 
the discoveries of science, because she excels them all 
in literature? 

The United States have produced scarcely a single 
learned writer, in the strict acceptation of that term ; in- 
deed I do not know one American work on classical 
literature, or that betrays any intimate acquaintance with 
the classics. And, excepting Cicero's works, printed 
accurately and well by VVells and Lilley, at Boston, the 
only classical productions of the American press are the 
repubUcation of a few common school books. Nor, I 
believe, have the United States produced any elementary 
work on ethics, or political economy, or metaphysics. 
The great mass of our native publications consists of 
newspaper essays, and party pamphlets. There are 
several respectable State and local histories, as those 
of New- York and New-Jersey, by Smith, Trumbull's 
History of Connecticut, Ramsay's History of South- 
Carohna, to which add his Account of the United 
States, and Holmes's Annals, M'Call's Georgia, Dar- 
by's Louisiana, and Stoddart's Account of that State, 
Jefferson's Notes on Virginia, Borman's Maryland, 
Prud's Pennsylvania, Williams's Vermont, Belknap's 
New-Hampshire, Hutchinson's Massachusetts, Sulli- 
van's Maine, Minot's History of Shay's Rebellion, and 
Drake's History of Cincinnati, in Ohio ; together with 
divers accounts of the late war, mostly written in that 
crusading style which revolutionary France has render- 
ed current throughout the world. 

Of native novels we have no great stock, and none 
good; our democratic institutions placing all the people 
on a dead level of political equality ; and the pretty 
equal diffusion of property throughout the country af- 
fords but little room for varieties, and contrasts of cha- 
racter ; nor is there much scope for fiction, as the coun- 
try is quite new, and all that has happened from its 
lirst settlement to the present hour, respecting it, is 
known to every one. There is, to be sure, some tra- 
ditionary romance about the Indians ; but a novel de- 
scribing these miserable barbarians, their squaws, and 



35(5 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

papooses, would not be very interesting to the present 
race of American readers. 

Our poetry is neither abundant nor excellent ; the 
state of society is not favourable to its production ; there 
is not much individual wealth to afford patronage, nor 
any collegiate endowments bestowing learned leisure ; 
the trading spirit pervades the whole community, and 
the merchant's Irgcr and the muses do not make very 
suitable companions. The aspect of nature, in the Uni- 
ted States, presents magnificence and beauty in all pro- 
fusion ; but hill and dale, and wood and stream, are 
not alone sufficient to breathe the inspirations of poetry, 
unless seconded by the habits and manners, the feeling, 
taste, and character of the inhabitants. Besides, the 
best English poets are as much read here as in Britain ; 
and Milton, Cowper, Burns, Scott, Southey, Byron, 
Campbell, and Moore, are formidable rivals to our 
American bards, who must either follow some other 
more substantial vocation than poesy, or soon mingle, 
as spirits, with the inhabitants of the ethereal world ; for 
beyond all peradventure, the most exalted genius, aided 
by the most extensive learning, if dependent on literary 
pursuits alone for subsistence, would be permitted to 
starve by our good republican Maecanates. The late 
president Dwight, when quite a young man, wrote two 
respectable poems, called " The Conquest of Canaan," 
and "Greenfield Hill." Mr. Barlow's "Columbiad," 
though full of hard words, and loud-sounding lines, has 
many magnificent descriptions of natural scenery, and 
some most fantastic visions of crude philosophy, and 
and still cruder politics. Mr. Sargeant, of Boston, has 
written some very spirited national lyrics; and Mr. 
Pierpoint's " Airs of Palestine" are an elegant and po- 
pular performance. " The Bridal of Vaumond''^ is in a 
much higher strain; and the writer, though evidently 
young and unexperienced, has swept the chords of his 
lyre with a master's hand, and gives token of an energy 
of intellect, reach of thought, and variety of information, 
which, if well directed, and steadily impelled, cannot 
fail to conduct him eventually to the heights of our com- 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 35*7 

munity. Possibly this little poem may not be a favour- 
ite with those profounder critics who read by the finger 
rather than the ear, on account of its various ry thm ; 
but those to whom the happier effusions of genius, taste, 
and feeling are dear, cannot fail to appreciate its high 
excellence. Woodworth's poems, lately published in this 
city, are manifestly the production of an uneducated 
mind ; but they evince a vigour of talent, a depth of 
feeling, and, in many instances, a purity of taste, that 
ought to carry their possessor up from the drudgery of 
a mere mechanical employment into a purer and a more 
congenial atmosphere. The too scanty biographical 
sketch of the author, prefixed to these poems, contains 
an interesting account of the struggles of unassisted ge- 
nius with early penury, and a protracted period of un- 
propitious circumstances. A hint is thrown out in this 
sketch of the publication of a second volume of Mr. 
Woodworth's poems ; if this be done, it is adviseable for 
the author to bestow some additional care upon the 
rythm, the rhymes, and the general structure and finish- 
ing of his verses. 

The greatest national work which the United States 
have produced, is Chief Justice Marshall's " Life of 
Washington." The character of Mr. Marshal, for great 
talents and sound information, has been long thoroughly 
established. When young, his reputation as an advo- 
cate was great. Some years since, in 1797-8, he dis- 
played his dexterity, judgment, and decision, as a diplo- 
matist, in his well-known negotiation with M. Talley- 
rand ; and now, as Chief Justice of the United States, 
he maintains, with masterly ability, firmness, and dig- 
nity, the best interests of liberty and law ; which, in- 
deed, are always inseparable. The work, however, 
bears evident marks of haste and negligence, which, 
indeed, is confessed by the author; but 

A judge should never be too indolent. Nevertheless, the 
book is written in a clear, manly, and vigorous style, 



358 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES, 

and contains an admirable outline of the history of the 
British North American colonies from their first settle- 
ment to the breaking out of the revolutionary war. 
Full justice is done to the exalted character of W ashing- 
ton, and to his illustrious compatriots ; an ample and 
instructive account is given of the origin and progress 
of political parties in the United States ; and the notes 
contain disquisitions, replete with profound reasoning 
and philosophical analysis. 

Of periodical works we have some few that exhibit 
considerable talent, and contain much valuable informa- 
tion. The Port Folio is conducted by its present Edi- 
tor, Mr. John E. Hall, with great ability, taste, and 
judgment, and displays many admirable specimens of 
elegant and finished composition, and of sound, manly 
criticism. This journal was originally established by 
the late Mr. Dennie, who is called the American Ad- 
dison, nearly twenty years since, and is the only pe- 
riodical work in the United States to which so long a 
life has been accorded. Mr. Dennie was the first gen- 
tleman in this country who devoted himself, exclusively, 
to the pursuit of letters, which he cultivated to the last 
liour of his earthly pilgrimage ; and received, from his 
benevolent fellow-citizens, as a recompense for his leli- 
citous effusions of genius, taste, feeling, tenderness, 
eloquence, wit, and humour — permission to starve. 

For general ability, and various information, the 
" JVorlh .American Review,'''' edited at Boston, is, proba- 
bly, the most conspicuous of all the periodical publica- 
tions in the United States. 

In the Analectic Magazine there are able original 
essays, Avell written biography, and some judicious cri- 
ticism. The Portico displays a vigour of thought, a 
boldness of originality, and a manly eloquence, that 
deserve much more than the languishing support, ba- 
lancing between life and death, which it receives from 
the opulent citizens of Baltimore. The American Ma- 
gazine and Review, recently floated in New-York, con- 
tains much valuable Information respecting the proceed- 
ings of the various learned societies in the United 



RESOURCES OP THE UiN'ITED- STATES. 359 

States ; but its critical department stands altogether on^_>r'^ 
a false foundation, namely, that criticism consists in 
finding fault. " He is a very great critic," says SK^nT 
dan, sarcastically, " for nothing pleases him." It re- 
quires, however, much more talent and learning, as well 
as more good temper, to praise judiciously, than to blame 
indiscriminately. The JVeologist is a periodical paper, 
of which nearly one hundred numbers have appeared 
in the New-York Daily Advertiser, which still continues 
to publish its lucubrations twice a week. It is, evident- 
ly, the production of young persons, who have, as yet, 
but little experience in the affairs of the world, or the 
social habits of our great cities ; but, beyond all doubt, 
the United States have not, hitherto, produced essays 
equal to those of the Neogolist, in real genius, learned 
criticism, ethical disquisition, fine taste, sound thought, 
chaste composition, various erudition, and touching elo- 
quence. And we trust, as it is widely circulated, 
through the medium of the newspapers, in New-York 
and Boston, that it will serve to correct and restrain, 
the pruriency of our little master-misses and literary 
fopplings to prattle incontinently upon the merits of a 
minute ballad, or small song, or new pas seul; and teach 
them, either to be silent, or learn to direct their atten- 
tion to some more profitable employment : perhaps the 
JVeologist may teach them the meaning of the proverb, 
^' ne sutor ultra crepidam.'''' 

Mr. Trumbull's JlI'Fingal, w^ritten to ridicule the to- 
nes during the revolution, exhibits much of the wit, and 
some of the learning, of Butler's Hudibras. Mr. Wash- 
ington Irving's Salmagundi and History of Knickerbocker, 
need not shrink from competition with any European 
performance, in the felicitous combination of good hu- 
moured wit, delicate irony, dexterous delineation of cha- 
racter, skilful exposition of the fashionable follies preva- 
lent in the United States, with the occasional relief of 
exquisitely finished composition, full of tenderness, me- 
lancholy, pathos, and eloquence. Mr. Irving's Sketch of 
the Life of Campbell, the Scottish poet, is an admirable 



360 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

union of sound philosophy, dehcate taste, judicious cri- 
ticism, fine feeUng, and elegant writing. 

Mr. Wirt has long been known as one of the most 
eloquent speakers and writers in the union; as an advo- 
cate he is considered the first at the Virginia bar, a bar 
fertile in powerful and animated oratory. His Old 
Bachelor, a collection of essays on various subjects, first 
stamped his excellence as a writer, and is become de- 
servedly popular all over the country; its chief objects 
are to vindicate the American character and intellect 
from European aspersions, to rouse the martial spirit of 
his countrymen, and excite a love of letters in the United 
States. His British Spy exhibits the finer characteris- 
tics of American eloquence, alike in the author's own 
composition, and in his delinealions of some of our first- 
rate oratory. His Sketches of the life of Patrick Henry, 
gives a most interesting, instructive, and eloquent ac- 
count of Henry, who is considered as one of the greatest 
orators and profoundest statesmen, that Virginia has 
produced. And also, it exhibits the origin and progress 
of the chief actors, who brought about the independence 
of the United States. 

It is quite enough to say of the late Fisher Ames, 
that he is denominated by his fellow-citizens the Burke 
of America. 

Mr. Colden's Life of Fulton is a very instructive and 
valuable work. It is, however, manifestly the produc- 
tion of one more accustomed to public speaking than to 
closet-composition; and it is well known, that some of 
the most eloquent speakers in the senate, and at the bar, 
both in Britain and in the United States, for umnt of 
practice, do not write with so much precision, fluency, 
and force, as their undoubted talents and information 
would naturally lead us to expect. Rousseau used to 
say, " that with whatever faculties a man might be born, 
that of writing well was not one; for that can only be 
attained by long and constant exercise, and habitual 
imitation of the best models." And when Dr. Johnson 
was once shown a book, written by an eminent British 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. ggj 

statesman, he said, " this book, Sir, is written with 
great ability, it displays vast reach of thought and vari- 
ety of erudition, and the style, considering the gentleman 
has not been used to write, is excellent." 

It is not, of course, intended to notice all the writers 
who have, by their talents and information, shed a lus- 
tre on the United States ; but merely to mark out a few 
examples of diiferent species of literary excellence. It 
would, however, be quite unpardonable to omit the 
name of Mr. Walsh, who is, confessedly, the first man 
of letters we have on this side of the Atlantic. His in- 
formation on general literature, politics, and history, is 
copious and accurate. His style of writing is elaborate, 
vigorous, splendid, and eloquent; with, perhaps, rather 
too frequent a use of the sesquipedalia verba, and of 
French words and phrases, which weaken the strength, 
and mar the uniformity of the composition. The Eng- 
lish language is sufficiently comprehensive and ener- 
getic, to give adequate expression to any sentiment, how- 
ever sublime, or tender, or indignant, or pathetic ; the 
whole compass of the human heart and head may be 
struck upon its chords, and every tone made to dis- 
course most excellent music. Dr. Johnson, in animad- 
verting upon the gallicisms of Mr. Hume, said, " that if 
they were suffered to gain ground, England would soon 
be reduced to babble a dialect of France." What is 
now said, is by no means said for the purpose of de- 
pressing or detracting from the great merits of Mr. 
Walsh, from whose writings, (to use a strong expression 
of Lord Bacon,) " he who does not receive instruction 
and delight, must be more than man, or less than beast." 
And, might I be permitted to add, that splendid and 
vigorous as are the writings of Mr. Walsli, his conversa- 
tion is still more rich, instructive, and interesting.'^ 

The United States ought to cherish the efforts of a 
man so gifted and so adorned, who devotes to the pro- 
secution of letters, talents and learning that, otherwise 
directed, would command any height of exaltation and 
influence, which our community can give. Mr. VValsh's 
Letter on the character and genius of the French govejii- 

46 



362 



HESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



menf, is a peculiarly splendid production, and contain? 
some very valuable inibrmation, altogether new, when 
promulgated, on the finances and internal administra- 
tion of the Imperial revolutionary government. It 
was profusely praised by both the Edinburgh and Quar- 
terly Reviews, and cited with great applause by Lord 
Chief Justice Ellenborough, from his seat in the King's 
BencJi. Mr. Walsh's American Review^ in four octavo 
volumes, contain much very interesting Information on 
the state of society and manners, in France and Eng- 
land, which ought to be published in a separate form. 
as a most acceptable boon to every reader. This Re- 
view also exhibits some sound criticism on American 
f)roductions, and considerable information on foreign 
iterature, particularly the French, German, and Italian ; 
and, above all, a lofty and sustained effort to raise the 
tone of literature in the United States, and make hisj 
country sensible, that no nation ever can become really 
great and permanently prosperous, until it protects and 
cultivates letters. In his correspondence with general 
Harper, on the probable result of the conflict between 
revolutionary France and the rest of Europe, the same 
characteristics of copious information and splendid elo- 
quence appear; his remarks on the portentous power of 
Russia, doubtless the European sovereigns now feel to 
be true and just. 

In his American Register, of which two octavo vo- 
lumes have appeared, he takes a wider range, as may be 
seen by a reference to his very admirable introduction 
to the first volume. He gives an able and interesting 
bird's-eye view of the political state of Europe, the do- 
mestic occurrences of the United States, the congress- 
ional and parliamentary debates on the most important 
topics of nuance, navigation, and general policy ; and 
exhibits a fine panorama of American and European 
literature. He particularly presses upon his country- 
men the necessity and importance of a wider system of 
education, and a more extended circlfe of literature ; his 
obseivatious on the benefits of a national university, are 
replete with wisdom and eloquence. 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 353 

Sufficient justice has »o/been rendered to Mr. Walsh's 
literary efforts in the United States ; in Britain, he is 
better appreciated. There they demanded four edi- 
tions of his Letter on the French government in a few 
weeks j whereas here his own countrymen have suffered 
a second edition to languish uncirculated, through the 
space of several years. It was a duty to say thus much 
of one, from whose lucubrations I have received so much 
pleasure and instruction ; and I have nothing further to 
add, than to express my warmest wishes for the con- 
tinuance of his literary career, in the words of his own 
favourite poet; 

" I, decus, I, nostrum, et melwribus utere fatis !" 

Medical science appears to have made by far the 
greatest improvement of any intellectual pursuit in the 
United States; and the schools of New-York, Phila- 
delphia, Boston, and Baltimore, are so well supplied 
with able professors and lecturers, as to supersede the 
necessity of our medical students resorting to Edin- 
burgh, London, or Paris, for instruction in any one 
branch of the healing art. A medical school has also 
been recently establislied in Kentucky, under the most 
favourable auspices of able teachers, and a strong incli- 
nation on the part of the western States, to support the 
institution with funds, and supply it with pupils. Seve- 
ral able medical periodical works are continually issuing 
from the American press. 

With regard to me fine arts, our sculpture extends but 
little beyond chisseling grave-stones for a church-yard ; 
and our painting, for want of individual wealth, is chiefly 
confined to miniatures, portraits, and landscapes ; the 
only splendid exceptions, are Mr. Trumbull's historical 
paintings of the Battle of Bunker^ s Hill, the Death of 
JMonigomery, the Sortie from Gibraltar ; together with 
some Scripture pieces, and the great national pictures, 
which he is now preparing for the capitol at Washing- 
ton. But American genius is equal to that of Europe 
for the fine arts, as is evident from the United States 



364 RESOimCEs of the umted states. 

having produced West, Trumbull, Stuart, Copeley, Al- 
ston, and Leslie. The Academies of the fine arts, at 
New- York and Philadelphia, contain some fine paint- 
ings, and a few good pieces of sculpture, imported from 
Europe. Boston, New-York, Philadelphia, and Wash- 
ington, contain some very handsome public buildings ; 
the city-hall of NeAv-York, a marble edifice, probably 
surpasses in magnificence and beauty, every European 
building out of Italy. 

Mr. Walsh, in the second volume of his Register^ in 
translating M. de Marbois's prehminary discourse, says, 
** Hitherto, the Americans have not made great progress 
m the elegant arts; their public hbraries, their museums, 
would not in Europe be thought worthy to decorate the 
mansion of an opulent amateur. They style the edifi- 
ces in which their legislators assemble, capitols^ and 
this appellation, which is now held ambitious, will one 
day appear quite modest. They have no cirques, am- 
phitheatres, nor mock sea-fights. It will never perhaps 
be necessary for them to construct citadels, or environ 
their towns with ditches and ramparts. There will not 
be seen among them, either pyramids, or proud mauso- 
leums, or basihcks, or temples, like those of Ephesus 
and Rome. Ages must revolve before they will erect 
those edifices, of which the idle and barren magnificence 
imposes heavy sacrifices on the present generation, di- 
verts their industry towards objects of mere parade, 
and entails wretchedness on posterity. The time of the 
Americans is wisely divided between permanently use- 
ful labours and necessary repose. They employ them- 
selves in preparing their fields for the production of 
food ; in rendering their dwellings commodious, in open- 
ing roads, and digging canals. Commerce and naviga- 
tion already supply them with wealth; the arts of real 
utility embellish their cities; and Europe, which so long 
stood single, as the country of the sciences and human 
wisdom, now shares with America this noble distinction.'* 

The genius of America is peculiarly distinguished for 
its invention in the usefiji mechanic arts ; in allusion to 
this, the late Mr. Gouverneur Morris, a few months be- 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 3^5 

fore his lamented death, said, " there are persons of 
some eminence in Europe, who look contemptuously at 
our country, in the persuasion that all creatures, not ex- 
cepting man, degenerate here. They triumphantly call 
on us to exhibit a list of our scholars, poets, heroes, and 
statesmen. Be this the care of posterity. But, admit- 
ting we had no proud names to snow, is it reasonable to 
make such heavy demand on so recent a people ? Could 
the culture of science be expected from those who, in 
cultivating the earth, were obliged, while they held a 
plough in one hand, to grasp a sword in the other.'* 
Let those who depreciate their brethren of the west 
remember, that our forests, though widely spread, gave 
no academic ghade. In the century succeeding Hud- 
son's voyage, the great poets of England flourished ; 
while we were compelled to earn our daily bread by 
our daily labour. The ground, therefore, was occupied 
before we had leisure to make our approach. The va- 
rious chords of our mother tongue have, long since, 
been touched to all their tones, by minstrels, beneath 
whose master hand it has resounded every sound, from 
the roar of thunder, rolling along the vault of heaven, 
to ' the lascivious pleasings of a lute.' British genius 
and taste have already given to all ' the ideal forms, 
that imagination can body forth, a local habitation and 
a name.' Nothing then remains for the present age 
but to repeat their just thoughts in their pure style. 
Those who, on either side of the Atlantic, are too 
proud to perform this plagiary task, must convey false 
thoughts in the old classic diction, or clothe in frippery 
phrase the correct conceptions of their predecessors. 
But other paths remain to be trodden, other fields to be 
cultivated, other regions to be explored. The fertile 
earth is not yet wholly peopled ; the raging ocean is 
not yet quite subdued. Be it ours to boast, that the 
first vessel successfully propelled by steam was launch- 
ed on the bosom of Hudson's river. It was here that 
American genius, seizing the arm of European science, 
bent to the purpose of our favourite parent art the 
wildest and most dcvourlnor element. This invention is 

3 



3{}(5 RESOUP.CES OF THE UNITED STATES 

spreading fast through the civilized world ; and though 
excluded, as yet, from Russia, will, ere long, be extend- 
ed to that vast empire. A bird hatched on the Hudson 
will soon people the floods of the Wolga, and cygnets, 
descended from an American swan, glide along the sur- 
face of the Caspian Sea. Then the hoary genius of 
Asia, high throned on the peaks of Caucasus, liis moist 
eye glistening, while it glances over the ruins of Baby- 
lon, rersepolis, Jerusalem, and Palmyra, shall bow with 
grateful reverence to the inventive spirit of this western 
world." 

The remedies to be applied for the removal of those 
impediments, which obstruct the progress of literature 
in the United States, are not very difficult of access, 
since no material causes of defect exist to render the 
intellect of America incapable of any improvement, 
within the compass of human genius to attain. 

The trading spirit, indeed, cannot be extinguished by 
the anathemas of the priest, or the declamations of the 
moralist. Massillon may preach, and Boileau may sa- 
tyrize, yet the merchant will continue to speculate, and 
count his gains. Nor is it desirable, if it were possible, 
to exterminate the trading spirit, which is indelibly and 
beneficially written on the human heart, and renders 
man, by nature, a trading animal. It can, however, and 
ought to be modified and restrained, lest it become 
excessive, and absorb all honour, intellect, virtue, pro- 
priety, and feeling into its insatiable gulf. So fell 
Tyre, and Sidon, and Carthage, and Venice, and Hol- 
land. This spirit requires restraint in the United 
States. The beginning of the remedy must be found in 
meliorating our systems o{ elementary education; in ren- 
dering them seminaries, where the morals of youth may 
be purified and exalted, and their understandings in- 
vigorated and expanded. If this be once done, the 
Colleges, of course, must adopt a larger and more libe- 
ral plan of instruction ; whence the absorbing tendency 
of the trading spirit will be restrained and counter- 
poised; the love of literature flourish; literary compe- 
tition spring into existence ; literary rewards and honours 



RESOUKCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 357 

create an effectual demand for the exertions of genius 
and learning; large private collections of books and 
ample public libraries be gathered together; and the 
whole nation rise in the scale of power and dignity, by 
having the life's-blood of intellect and knowledge in- 
fused into all its veins and arteries, from the source of 
circulation, the heart. Then, indeed, may we expect 
the refinements of art, and science, and letters, to follow 
in the train of opulence, aud purify it from its grossness. 

The means of hterary competition must be provided 
and multiplied. Men of genius must be roused to ex- 
ertion by the collision of kindred genius. " Give me 
kings to run with, and I will start," said Alexander, 
when urged to contend at the Olympic games. Men of 
great talents, if they see no high standard of hterary 
excellence raised in the country, either pursue some 
other vocation, or sink into indolence and ease. This 
desirable purpose may be accomplished by properly 
constructed Literary Societies, where men meet to- 
gether, to contribute, each his share, to the 'common 
stock of intellect, and mutually watch over, collide with, 
and invigorate each other's understanding. A remark-^ 
able illustration of their utility is furnished by the 
French Academy^ founded in 1635, by Cardinal Riclilieu, 
to improve the French language, grammar, poetry, and 
eloquence. This Academy published an excellent 
Dictionary, and exceedingly improved the style of 
French composition. In its first harangues, the style is 
cold, barren, feeble, insipid, and uninteresting. As we 
advance in the perusal of its volumes, the language be- 
comes richer, more splendid, and, occasionally, elegant 
and vigorous; and the concluding dissertations are full 
of the happiest sentiments, conveyed in language bril- 
liant, energetic, and eloquent. 

In a literary society, properly constituted^ and well con- 
ducted, every member is continually incited to diligence 
in the composition of his writings, because he knows 
that they will undergo a strict examination from his 
fellows, whose criticisms will enable him to correct 
what is erroneous, brighten what is obscure, lop what 



3(58 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

is superfluous. Invigorate his sentiments, and chasten 
his language. Such institutions also diffuse an honour- 
able spirit of literary ambition over the community, by 
holding up an object of esteem, towards which men of ge- 
nius may press, for enrolment among its members; by giv- 
ing to the public its lucubrations, to form a literary reposi- 
tory; and by creating models of good writing, to strength- 
en the understanding, and refine the taste of the nation 
into which they breathe the spirit of their intcl- 
hgence. And such an Institution is exceedingly bene- 
ficial to the members, in enlarging their knowledge and 
polishing their taste by the collision of intellect in their 
literary conferences. In such a republic of letters, men 
bear sway in proportion to their superior mind ; to the 
opinions of such men on matters of literary investiga- 
tion, attention is always paid and rewarded by corres- 
ponding improvement. Men of equal or similar talents 
and acquisitions contend in this amicable conflict, and 
from the reciprocal contest results mutual instruction, 
and the growth of wisdom and information is rapidly 
increased by the continual application of the most 
powerful incitements to intellectual exertion: namely, 
the authority of the already celebrated, the contradic- 
tion of aspiring candidates for literary renown, the de- 
sire of praise so generally prevalent, the dread of ridi- 
cule, whlcli so much more generally prevails, and 
finally, by the elevated wish to become useful to our 
country and to the world. 

There are learned Societies in Boston, New-York, 
and Philadelphia, which have contributed, and are con- 
tinually contributing much to the growth of intellect 
and information in the United States. The Historical^ 
and the Literary and Philosophical Societies of New- 
York, have been peculiarly serviceable in promoting 
the progress of letters and science. Some of their 
memDers have read able and Instructive papers; the 
orations of the late Mr. Gouverneur Morris, were 
compositions peculiarly splendid and finished ; and Mr. 
Clinton's Introductory discourse to the Literary and 
Philosophical Society covers a vast and various extent 



liESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 359 

of science and erudition. Indeed, Governor Clinton 
has always approved himself the warm friend and pa- 
tron of art, hterature, and science, as the means best 
calculated to make his country permanently illustrious 
and powerful ; as well as rendered them essential ser- 
vice by his own personal contributions. The Corpora- 
tion of the City of New-York deserve all praise for 
their magnificent appropriation of an extensive range 
of buildings, to the exclusive use of hterary and scienti- 
fic societies. 

But, perhaps, the most effectual means of promoting 
the progress of learning in the United States, would be 
the establishment of a JValional University. Mr. Blodget, 
in his Economical details at length General Washing- 
ton's views and wishes respecting this important subject ; 
Mr. Walsh, in the Introduction to the first volume of 
his Register^ has lent all the aid of his talents and elo- 
quence, to set forth the vast advantages of such a mea- 
sure. And the President, in his Message of the 2d of 
December, 1817, suggests to Congress " the propriety 
of recommending to the States an amendment of the 
Federal Constitution, giving to congress power to insti- 
tute seminaries of learning, for the all-important pur- 
pose of diffusing knowledge among our fellow-citizens 
throughout the United States." 

So early as the year 1775, at the very commence- 
ment of the revolutionary struggle, General Washing- 
ton, while in camp at Cambridge, near Boston, looked 
forward to the establishment of a National University. 
Not being able, when living, to effect this object, he left, 
by his will, stock equal to twenty-five thousand dollars, 
towards establishing such an institution in the Federal 
city ; and invited the subscriptions of his fellow-citizens 
for the same purpose. He directs the annual proceeds 
of his own legacy to be invested at compound interest, 
until the fund, together with other subscriptions, should 
be sufficient to accomplish the whole plan proposed. If 
ever a National University, liberally endowed and well 
sustained by the talents and learning of its professors, 
shall be established, it will do more towards promoting 

17 



370 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

the progress of letters in the United States, than any 
single institution which has yet been planted. In such 
a national seminary, the whole circle of the arts, and 
sciences, and erudition, should be taught ; the classics^ 
both Greek and Latin, thorouglily, as the best basis of 
all liberal education; to which add the mathematics 
and natural philosophy, and regular courses of lectures 
on moral philosophy, political economy, belles lettres 
and rhetoric, elocution, metaphysical science, municipal 
jurisprudence, and the law of nature and nations. It 
would be a patriotic duty for all classes of society, the 
people at large, the men of leisure, the men of business, 
the physicians, the lawyers, the statesmen, and the di- 
vines of America, to unite their powerful etforts to 
create and maintain such a national mstitution ; another 
Athens in this western orb, which, under their guar- 
dian auspices, may long flourish, as the general reposi- 
tory of learning ; and eventually render these United 
States, at once the bulwark and ornament of literature 
within their own extensive dominions, and the perma- 
nent object of esteem and admiration to the whole sur- 
rounding world. 

The following observations of Mr. Walsh, in relation 
to this subject, cannot be too often repeated, nor too 
widely circulated. 

*' Sovereigns and governments alone can raise up insti- 
tutions for education, of the amplitude and mechanism 
required to give energy and efficacy to all the human 
faculties. Without such institutions we cannot^ in the 
United States, expect to display that perfection of indi' 
vidual and social being which the European nations have 
nearly attained, and which we are, in other respects,, be- 
yond the rest of the world, privileged to reach. It is 
to the national government that we must look for the 
means of becoming the rivals of Europe in the pursuits 
which give most honour and happiness to our species. 
The 5/a/e-governments have not the ability, and are not 
likely to have the inclination, to create those means. 
We are a great commercial, and are to be a great mili- 
tary people, only through the federal system ; we can 



RESOURCES OF THE UMTED STATES. 3'yj 

become a literary and philosophical people by the same 
agency alone. All these qualifications are necessary to 
constitute national greatness, upon the scale which suits' 
our unrivalled opportunities. We must be Greece, 
Rome, and Carthage, at once; or, what is more, modern 
Italy, France, and England, in the same frame." 

Generally speaking, our systems of education for 
girls^ are practically better than those for boys ; and ac- 
cordingly, our women generally are more intelligent 
and conversible than the men. In some of our larger 
cities, it is fashionable for the young ladies to learn the 
elements of botany and chymistry, in addition to the 
common rudiments of female instruction. In our own 
city of New- York, Mr. Griscom, a celebrated teacher, 
has established a course of lectures on natural philoso- 
phy for young ladies, who attend him in great numbers, 
from our most respectable families. Such a course of 
instruction, combined with suitable reading and reflec- 
tion at home, would lay the basis of solid and substan- 
tial information, as the means of utility and delight 
throughout the whole of life. 

Miss Hannah More's " Strictures on the Modern SyS" 
tern of Female Education,'''' are admirably adapted to ren- 
der women sensible, well-bred, and excellent, in all 
the various relations and charities of life. They teach, 
that domestic virtue is woman's chiefest ornament and 
praise, and more likely to be found in a liberally educa- 
ted, than in an unintelligent female. Her observations 
on this point are peculiarly good ; there is, at present, 
room only for the few following sentences. " Since, 
then, there is a season, when the youthful must cease to 
be young, and the beautiful to excite admiration, to 
learn how to groiv old gracefully, is, perhaps, one of the 

rarest and most valuable arts which can be tausfht to 

* 1 • • • 

woman. And, it must be confessed, it is a most severe 

trial for those women to be called to lay down beauty, 
who have nothing else to take up. It is for this sober 
season of life, that education should lay up its rich re- 
sources. However disregarded they may hitherto have 
been, they will be wanted now. When admirers fall 



372 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

away, and flatterers become mute, the mind will be dri- 
ven to retire into itself; and if it find no entertainment 
at home, it will be driven back again upon the world 
with increased force. Yet, forgetting; this, do we not 
seem to educate our daughters exclusively for the tran- 
sient period of youth, when it is to maturer life we ought 
to advert.'' Do we not educate them for a crowd, for- 
getting that they are to live at home ? For the world, 
and not for themselves ? For show, and not for use } 
For time, and not for eternity .'"' 

" The chief end to be proposed in cultivating the un- 
derstandings of women, is to qualify them for the prac- 
tical purposes of life. Their knowledge is not often, 
like the learning of men, to be reproduced in some lite- 
rary composition, nor even in any learned profession; 
but it is to come out in conduct, ft is to be exhibited in 
life and manners. A lady studies, not that she may 
qualify herself to become an orator or a pleader ; not that 
she may learn to debate, but to act. She is to read the 
best books, not so much to enable her to talk of them, 
as to bring the improvement which they furnish, to the 
rectification of her principles, and the formation of her 
habits. The great uses of study to a woman arc, to 
enable her to regulate her own mind, and to be instru- 
mental to the good of others. To woman, therefore, 
whatever be her ratik, 1 would recommend a predomi- 
nance of those more sober studies, which, not having 
display for their object, may make her wise without 
vanity, happy without witnesses, and content without 
panegyrists; the exercise of which will not bring cele- 
brity, but improve usefulness." 

The American ladies have learned, that it is not alto- 
gether the business of their lives to minister to the mere 
pleasure of man, as the plaything of his hours of relaxa- 
tion from the toils of ambition, or the cravings of wealth ; 
to be entirely absorbed in the pursuits of ephemeral 
fashion, and " when God has given them one face, to 
make unto themselves another, to jig, to amble, and 
lisp, and nickname God's creatures, and make their 
wantonness their ignorance." They have discovered. 



RESOURCES OF THE l/NITED STATES. 373 

that God has given them such high capacities of ex- 
cellence, such acute perception, such exquisite feehng, 
such ardent affection, for the purpose of becoming man's 
companion and guide ; the soother of his sorrows and 
heightener of his joys ; the object of his proud submis- 
sion, his dignified obedience, his chivalrous worship ; 
the being whose smile forms the joy of liis life, the sun- 
shine of his existence. 

"•' Till Hymen brought his love-delighted hour. 
There dwelt no joy in Eden's roseate bovver. 
In vain the viewless seraph, lingering there, 
At starry midnight charra'd the silent air ; 
In vain the wild-bird caroll'd from the steep, 
To hail the sun slow wheeling from the deep ; 
In vain, to soothe the solitary shade, 
Aerial notes in mingling measure play'd ; 
The summer wind that shook the spangled tree. 
The whispering wave, the murmuring of the bee, 
Still slowly passed the melancholy day, 
And still the stranger wist not where to stray ; 
The world was sad, the garden was a wild, 
And man, the hermit, sigh'd tillwoinan smird." 



CHAPTER VIL 



On the Habits, Manners, and Character of the United 
Stales, 

1 HAT for eigyiers who do not speak (he same language 
as the people of this country, should be extremely igno- 
rant of the resources and character of the Americans, 
is not a subject of surprise; the very circumstance of 
their speaking in a different tongue, added to the gene- 
ral prevalence of despotism in their respective govern- 
ments, and want of mformation in their subjects, will 
sufficiently account for their unacquaintance with the 
past history, the present situation, the future prospects 
of the United States. But Britain can find no such ex- 
cuse for her portentous ignorance of this country ; her 
blood flows in every vein, and quickens every artery 
of the giant offspring, sprung from her teeming loins ; 
her language, laws, religion, habits, manners, and pur- 
suits, have reproduced another Britain in this western 
world, on a far more extended scale of capacity, magni- 
ficence, and power, than its venerable mother can ever 
hope to attain ; cooped and cabined in as she is, by the 
narrow dimensions of her own territorial dominions. 

Indeed, the general, not to say universal ignorance 
which prevails in Britain, alike in the government and 
in the people, respecting all the essential qualities, and 
national characteristics of these United States, is almost 
incredible to those who have not attentively examined 
the subject. Perhaps it is chiefly owing to the inter- 
course between the two countries being almost exclu- 
sively commercial ; for in general, merchants are not apt 
to investigate a country, either very comprehensively, 
or very accurately, beyond the states of its markets. 



BESOUHCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 375 

and the course of its prices current. And, antil It shall 
become the fashion for the gentlemen and men of edu- 
cation, both of America and of Britain, to travel over, 
and explore each other's country, the two nations must, 
and will remain in profound ignorance of their recipro- 
cal relation, character, and interest. 

In addition to all this, the British government has not 
been sufficiently careful to send out able and intelligent 
ambassadors and ministers to the United States. 

The reasons why the British diplomacy is in general 
defective ; and why, in particular, so few able ambassa- 
dors have been sent out by her to these United States, 
are detailed at length in " The Resources of the British 
Empire,''^ from p. 332 to 351 ; containing also, the 
causes of Britain's general unacquaintance with the 
movements and dispositions of foreign nations, and of 
her neglecting to avail herself of the presses of other 
countries, in order to tell her own story, and to justify 
her own measures to the world. 

This is the more to be regretted, as it regards the 
United States and Britain, because the interests of both 
countries are similar ; and their mutual peace, good un- 
derstanding, and friendship, redound so much to the es- 
sential benefit of both. J\I. Talleyrand, first a bishop 
under the old regime, then a citizen sans-culotte, then 
a revolutionary and imperial prince, and finally, a Bour- 
bon prime minister, was so well aware of the recipro- 
cal interests of America and Britain, that in a memoii'' 
read to the National Institute, he proposed the fixing a 
powerful French establishment in the United States, as 
the only means of counteracting the peaceful and ami- 
cable tendencies of two nations sprung from the same 
stock, speaking the same language, living under the 
same, or similar laws, using the same religion, and ex- 
hibiting the same habits and manners. 

The clerical citizen prince complains grievously, of 
the existence of any commercial or friendly intercourse 
between America and Britain ; when, after the revolu- 
tionary struggle, in which the French so effectually 
aided their new allies, and the United States had tbrowrx 



37t) RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

off the dominion of the English, every reason seemed to 
indicate a dissolution of tliose mercantile connexions 
Avhich had before subsisted between two portions of the 
same people. The chief of these reasons were — the 
recollection of the evils produced by a seven years' 
war ; a defiance and hatred of Britain, and attachment 
to France, as their companion in arms, and their libe- 
rator from colonial vassalage ; attachment, most forcibly 
manifested at the breaking out of the war between 
France and England, in the year 1793; at which pe- 
riod the conversation and actions of the American peo- 
ple, their newspapers and pamphlets, their town-meet- 
ings and public speeches, their illuminations and cla- 
mour, almost drove the administration of Washington 
himself to manifest, by joining the French revolutionary 
republic, in its war against Britain, the strong inclina- 
tion towards France, and the equally deadly hatred to- 
wards England, which then pervaded so large a portion 
of the United States. 

These, and other reasons, it was hoped would, for 
ever, turn the tide of American commerce from its ac- 
customed channel ; or, if it should happen to incline a 
little towards the shores of England, it would require a 
very trifling exertion, on the part o[ France, to divert it 
entirely to her own dominions. Closer, and more accu- 
rate observation, however, will soon detect the fallacy 
of all such conclusions, and point out the helplessness of 
an artificial and circuitous policy to resist the universal 
efficiency of nature herself, wnen she appeals to the 
liuman heart, in the accents of a kindred tongue, and 
with the all-prevailing voice of manifest advantage. 
Individuals may sometimes, and under certain circum- 
stances, feel the impulses of fcratitude, and act under a 
deep and permanent sense of kindness shown and bene- 
fits received; a great proportion of individuals, how- 
ever, like Milton's hero, consider it to bd a debt, " so 
burdensome, still paying, still to owe," that they are 
eager to cast it off for ever, by returning the recom- 
pense of hatred and calumny into the bosom of their 
benefactor. .JVafinns. large masses of men, being a. 



RESOTTRrES OF THE UNITED STATES. ' 377 

body in continual flux, liable to perpetual chano*e in 
opinions, sentiments, relations, and actions, nevfn can be 
capable of gratitude to other nations. It is idle, there- 
fore, for France to insist upon a grateful return from 
the United States, on account of her aiding them in 
fckoJr revolutionary war; and equally idle for Britain to 
request that thp. American people shall cease to revile 
and calumniate all her institutions and proceedings, be- 
cause her capital and credit have enabled the United 
extensive commerce, in growihg ' nrertloiowerful in an 
widening agriculture, in a variety of thriving moneyed 
establishments. Interest and ambition are the pole-star 
and magnet of nations ; gratitude and affection the in- 
centives of individual, not of national action. Besides, 
the gratitude of America was due to Louis XVI. per- 
sonally, and was fully cancelled by his subsequent re- 
gret, that he had ever assisted the United States, and 
by the efforts of his Cabinet, in the year 1783, to pre- 
vent England from acknowledging their independence, 
to exclude them from the Newfoundland fisheries, and 
to confine their territory to the eastward of the Alle- 
ghany mountains; all showing, that the object of France 
was not regard to the United States, but a desire to 
weaken both America and Britain, by protracting the 
conflict between them. 

Whoever has well observed America, cannot doubt 
that she still remains essentially English^ in language, 
habits, laws, customs, manners, morals, and religion; 
that her ancient commerce with England increased, 
many fold, instead of declining in activity and extent, sub- 
sequent to the independence of the United States ; and 
that, consequently, so far as relates to commercial in- 
tercourse, the independence of America has been bene- 
ficial to Britain. M. Talleyrand^ indeed, labours to 
prove, that the inconsiderate conduct of the old French 
government (as contradistinguished from the revolu- 
tionary system) laid the foundation of the commercial 
success of Endand with the United States. He thinks, 
that if, after the peace which secured the independence 

-18 



378 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

of America, Frano<^ ?iad been sufficieiitly sensible of the 
full nJraiiiage of licF existing position, she would have 
continued and sought to multiply exceedingly, those 
political, commercial, and social relations, which, during 
the revolutionary war, had been established between 
her and her Transatlantic Allies; and which had ht^^ 
forcibly, and bloodily broken off with T^ilttiui. If this 
had been done, the ancient habits and relations between 
America and Engrlaml .Iviir-p^mftfi* irtiVSffiVtf^Vs EgllKs^ 
^?«nfy Inmg which had the least tendency to reconcile 
the Americans with the English ; so as to prevent the 
possibility of any cordial and permanent friendship ever 
existing between the two nations. 

But the French Court was fearful, that the same 
principles of democracy^ which she had protected and 
encouraged by her arms in America, should introduce 
themselves, and be disseminated among her own peo- 
ple ; and therefore, at the conclusion of the war in 
1783, she did not sufficiently continue, and promote her 
political and commercial connexions with the United 
States. Whereas England wisely forgot, and subdued 
the bitterness of her resentments ; she immediately re- 
opened her channels of communication both social and 
mercantile with America, and rendered them still more 
active than at any period prior to the Revolution. By 
such conduct she directed the attention of the United 
States towards a profitable market; and thus increased 
the obstacles to the ascendency of French influence. 
For the will of man is always powerfully swayed by in- 
clination and interest; and notwlthstandinjr the occur- 
rence of a long and sanguinary war, and all the efforts 
of political faction, the Americans have a natural bias 
towards England, to whose kindred people all their 
own habits assimilate them. 

Identity of language itself, as M. Talleyrand observes, 
is a fundamental relation between different individuals 
and different countries; upon which the political moral- 
ist, and the moral philosopher, cannot too patientiv, and 
too profoundly meditate. This very identity of tongue 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 379 

establishes between the two nations, America and Eng- 
land, a common character, which will always enable, 
nay, induce thera to recognize and consort with each 
other. They mutually feel themselves at home, when- 
ever they travel into each other's territory, they give 
and receive reciprocal pleasure in the interchange of 
sentiment and thought ; in the discussion of their various 
opinions, views, and interests. But an insurmountable 
barrier is raised up between two different people, who 
speak two different languages ; and who, therefore, can- 
not utter a single word, without being compelled to re- 
member, that they do not belong to the same country; 
between whom every solitary transmission of sentiment 
and thought is irksome labour, and not a social enjoy- 
ment; who never can be made to understand each other 
thoroughly; and with whom the result of conversation, 
after the fatigue of unavailing efforts to be reciprocally 
intelligible, is to find themselves reciprocally ridiculous. 
This of course applies to the mass of a people ; there 
are well educated individuals in most countries, who 
can converse with each other fully in a tongue not 
common to both speakers. 

Accordingly, notwithstanding the government of 
France, both under the Bourbons during the old 
regime and under the Revolutionary regicides, whether 
democratic, directorial, consular, or imperial, always ex- 
ercised considerable influence over the government of 
America ; which so far from being influenced by, was 
always prone to suspect and take offence at every act 
of the British government, however harmless or well 
intended ; yet, in every part of the United States, indi- 
vidual Enghshmen feel themselves to be Americans; 
and individual Frenchmen find themselves to be as com- 
pletely strangers, as if they were animals of different 
species at least; even if they might be considered 
generically the same. 

Nor is it any marvel to see this natural, necessary, 
habitual assimilation towards England, in a country 
where, in addition to the identity of language in both, 
the great distinguishing and characteristic features of 



380 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

the form of government, and of the system of municipal 
law, vvliether in the Federal Union, or in the separate 
State sovereignties, arc impressed vi'ith so strong a 
family resemblance to the leading lineaments of the 
British Constitution. The personal liberty of the indivi- 
dual citizen in the United States, rests upon precisely 
the same foundations as those which support the per- 
sonal freedom of the British subject; namely, the habeas 
corpus act, and trial by jury. Whoever attends the sit- 
tings of Congress, and the State legislatures, and listens 
to the discussions respecting the framing of law^s whe- 
ther for the Union, or for the separate States ; will hear 
all their quotations, analogies, and examples, taken from 
the laws, the history, the customs, the parliamentary 
rules and usages of England. In the American courts 
of justice, the authorities cited are the statutes, the 
judgments, the decrees, the reported dicisions of the 
English courts ; in familiar and friendly accompaniment 
with those of the American tribunals. 

In the higher and more cultivated classes of society 
in both countries, there is also a community of taste and 
sentiment on subjects of literature, and a common feel- 
ing of pride in the great poets, philosophers, historians, 
and general writers of the mother country, that forms a 
strong bond of union. 

Now, if a people so trained and so circumstanced, 
have no natural, no habitual bias and inclination towards 
England, we must renounce all belief and trust, in the 
controlling influences of language, laws, habits, manners, 
customs, and usages, upon the opinions, feelings, passions, 
actions, and character of men ; we must deny that man 
receives any effectual impressions, any permanent modi- 
fications, from surrounding circumstances ; from all that 
he sees, hears, reads, observes, and is engaged in, from 
the cradle to the grave. It is, comparatively, of little 
moment, that the names of a Republic and a Monarchy 
appear to place between the two governments distinc- 
tions which cannot be confounded, and obstacles which 
cannot be surmounted. For, in fact, there are strong 
republican features in the representative portion of the 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 3gj 

English Constitution i and there are monarchal linea- 
ments distinctly visible in the executive branches of the 
American constitutions, both state and federal. This 
was more peculiarly the case, as long as the presidency 
of General Washington continued ; for the force of pub- 
lic opinion and sentiment, attached to his person through- 
out the whole of the United States, bore a striking re- 
semblance to that kind of magical power and illusion, 
which many most distinguished political writers attri- 
bute to the pervading influences of monarchy, under the 
name of loyalty to the reigning sovereign. 

This sentiment, however, did not survive the execu- 
tive magistracy of Washington; the strange and way- 
ward conduct of President Adams, together with the 
schism in the federal party during his administration, for- 
bade all personal attachment to him. And Mr. Jeffer- 
son and Mr. Madison avowedly administered the fede- 
ral government altogether on democratic principles and 
views, which cut up by the root all possibility of per- 
sonal attachment, stifle every generous feeling of enthu- 
siasm and reverence, and degrade the government of a 
country from the high eminence of a national adminis- 
tration, into the deep abyss of the dominion of a faction. 
Mr. Monroe, indeed, has lately been making progress 
through the United States, and " buying golden opinions 
from all sorts of men," with the hope of rekindling that 
flame of loyalty, and national attachment to their execu- 
tive chief, which glowed in the bosoms of the American 
people for the illustrious Washington, " first in war, 
first in peace, and first in the hearts of his fellow-citi- 
zens." 

It is surprising, that Mr. Talleyrand, who has made 
oo many profound remarks, and drawn such wise and 
comprehensive inferences, in \i\s Memoir \o the National 
Institute, should so egregiously have mistaken the cha- 
racter of the Americans. He says, that as a people 
newly constituted and formed of different elements, their 
national character is not yet decided. They remain Eng- 
lish from ancient habit; and because thev have not 



382 RESOURCES OF THE UMTED STATES. 

yet had time to become completely Americans. Their 
climate is not yet formed : their character still less. l( 
we consider those populous cities filled with English, 
Germans, Irish, and Dutch, as well as with their indige- 
nous inhabitants ; those remote towns so distant from 
each other; those vast uncultivated tracts of soil, tra- 
versed rather than inhabited by men who belong to no 
country ; what common bond can we conceive in the 
midst of so many incongruities ? It is a novel sight to 
the traveller, who, setting out from a principal city 
where society is in perfection, passes in succession 
through all the degrees of civilization and industry, 
which he constantly finds growing weaker and weaker, 
until in a few days he arrives at a misshapen and rude 
cabin, formed of the trunks of trees lately cut down. 

Such a journey is a sort of practical and living ana- 
lysis of the origin of people and states ; we set out from 
the most compounded mixture, to arrive at the most 
simple ingredients; at the end of every day we lose 
sight of some of those inventions which our wants, as 
they have increased, have rendered necessary ; and it 
appears as if we travelled backwards in the history of 
the progress of the human mind. If such a sight lays 
a strong hold upon the imagination ; if we please our- 
selves by finding in the succession of space what appears 
to belong only to the succession of time, we must make 
up our minds to behold but few social connexions, and 
no common character amongst men, who appear so lit- 
tle to belong to the same association. In many districts 
the sea and the woods have formed fishermen and wood- 
cutters. Now, such men have no country; and their 
social morality is reduced within a very small compass. 
Man is the disciple of that which surrounds him. Hence, 
he whose bounds are circumscribed by nothing but de- 
serts, cannot receive lessons with regard to the social 
comforts of life. The idea of the need which men have 
of each other, does not exist in him ; and it is merely 
by decomposing the trade which he exercises, that one 
can find out the principles of his affections and the sum 
of his morality. 



^ ^ RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 383 

The American wood-cutter does not interest himself 
in any thing ; every sensible idea is remote from him. 
Those branches so agreeably disposed by nature, beau- 
tiful foliage, the bright colour which enlivens one part 
of the wood, the darker green which gives a melancho- 
ly shade to another; these things are nothing to him; 
axe'^required to fell a tree, fills aTl^^rs^fiMfigtef.^ni'! 
never planted; he knows not its pleasures. A tree of 
his own planting would be good for nothing in his 
estimation, for it would never during his life be large 
enough to fell. It is by destruction he lives ; he is a de- 
stroyer wherever he goes. Thus, every place is equal- 
ly good in his eyes ; he has no attachment to the spot 
on which he has spent his labour, for his labour is only 
fatigue, and unconnected with any idea of pleasure. 
In the effects of his toil he has not witnessed those gra- 
dual increases of growth so captivating to the planter; 
he regards not the destination of his productions; he 
knows not the charm of new attempts ; and if, in quit- 
ting the abode of many years, he does not by chance 
forget his axe, he leaves no regret behind him. 

The vocation of an American fisherman begets an 
apathy almost equal to that of the wood-cutter. His 
affections, his interest, his life, are on the side of that 
society, to which it is thought he belongs. But it would 
be a prejudice to suppose him a useful member. For 
we must not compare these fishermen to those of Eu- 
rope, and think that the fisheries here are, like them, a 
nursery for seamen. In America, with the exception of 
the inhabitants of Nantucket, who fish for whales, fish- 
ing is an idle employment ! Two leagues from the 
coast, when they have no dread of foul weather; a sin- 
gle mile, when the weather is uncertain ; is the sum of 
the courage which they display ; and the line is the only 
instrument of which they know the practical use. Thus 
their knowledge is but a triHing trick ; and their action, 
which consists in constantly hanging one arm over the- 
side of the boat, is little short of idleness. They are 
attached to no place; their only connexion with thf^ 



384 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

land, is by means of a wretched house which they in- 
habit. The sea affords them nourishment; and a few 
cod-fish, more or less determine their country. If their 
nnmber seems to diminish in any particular quarter, 
they emigrate in search of another country, where they 
are more abundant. The remark, that fishing is a sort 
of agriculture, is not spyt^ v?i'Ht]nglriii-im-Tv-no' lives by 
fishing. Agriculture produces a patriot, in the truest 
acceptation of the word ; fishing can only form a cos- 
mopolite. 

So that it is not only by reason of their origin, lan- 
guage, and interest, the Americans so constantly find 
themselves to be Englishmen ; an observation which 
applies more especially to the cities. When one looks 
upon the people wandering among the woods, upon the 
snores of the sea, and by the banks of the rivers, the 
general observation is strengthened with regard to 
tnem, by that indolence^ and want of native character, 
which renders this class of Americans more ready to 
receive and preserve a foreign impression. Doubtless, 
this will grow weaker, and altogether disappear, when 
the constantly increasing population shall, by the culture 
of so many desert lands, have brought the inhabitantiy 
nearer together. As for the other causes, they have 
taken such deep root, that it would require a French 
establishment in the United States, to successfully coun- 
teract their ascendency. Undoubtedly, such a political 
project should not be overlooked by the government of 
France. No confutation of such positions can be neces- 
sary. 

M. Talleyrand, however, has discovered his usual sa- 
gacity in tracing the settlement of colonies, and the sour- 
ces of their population, when he says, the differeni 
causes which gave rise to colonial establishments, have 
been seldom pure. Thus, ambition and the ardour oi 
conquests carried the first colonies of the Phoenicians 
and Egyptians into Greece; violence, that of the Tyri- 
ans to Carthage ; the njisfortunes of war, that of the 
fugitive Trojans to Italy; commerce, and the love ot 



RESOURCES OF THE UiXITED STATES. 355 

riches, those of the Carthaginians to the isles of the 
Mediterranean, and the coasts of Spain and Africa ; ne- 
cessity, those of the Athenians into Asia Minor, the peo- 
ple becoming too numerous for their limited and barren 
territory; prudence, that of the Lacedemonians to Ta- 
rentum, to deliver themselves from some turbulent citi- 
zens ; and urgent policy, the numerous small and unim- 
portant colonies of the Romans, who shovt'^ed their wis- 
dom in giving up to their colonists a portion of the con- 
quered countries ; because they appeased the people, 
who incessantly demanded a new division of the land, 
and because they thus formed of the disconted them- 
selves, a sure guard in the countries which they had 
subdued. The ardour for plunder, and the fury of war, 
much more than the excess of population, sent the co- 
lonies, or rather irruptions of the people of the north, 
into the Roman empire ; and a romantic piety, greedy 
of conquest, those of the European croisaders into Asia. 

After the discovery of America, the folly, injustice, 
and avarice of individuals thirsting after gold, threw 
them upon the first countries to which their barks con- 
veyed them. The more rapacious they were, the more 
they separated ; they wished not to cultivate, but to lay 
waste. Those, indeed, were not true colonists. Some 
time afterward, religious dissentions gave birth to more 
regular establishments; thus the puritans took refuge 
in the north of America; the English catholics in Ma- 
ryland; the quakers in Pennsylvania; whence Dr. Smith 
concludes, that the vices, not the wisdom of European 
governments, peopled the new world. Other great 
emigrations likewise, were owing to a gloomy policy, 
falsely called religious. Thus Spain rejected the Moors 
from her bosom; France the Protestants; almost all 
governments, the Jews: and every where the error, 
which had dictated such deplorable counsels, was recog- 
nized too late. They had discontented subjects, and 
they made them enemies who might have served, but 
were forced to injure, their country. 

The inhabitants of the United States consist of Eu- 
ropeans and their descendants, African negroes an4 

49 



38t) KtSOLRCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

their descendants, and tlje Aboriginal Indians. — Of 
which last it is not intended to treat, as they are verging 
rapidly to extinction, under the pressure of American 
encroachment; whicii Mr. Monroe, in his Message oi' 
the 2d of December, 1817, maintains to be quite pro- 
per, and says, " The hunter state can exist only in the 
vast, uncultivated desert. It yields to the more dense 
and compact form, and greater force of civihzed popu- 
lation; and, of right, it ought to yield, for the earth was 
given to mankind, to support the greatest number of 
which it is capable, and no tribe or people have a right 
to withhold from the wants of others more than is ne- 
cessary for their own support and comfort." 

The great mass of our people is of English origin, 
and not made up, originally, of convicts, mendicants, 
and vagabonds, according to the vulgar, but erroneous 
opinion. The first settlers in this country were, for 
the most part, of respectable families and good charac- 
ter, who came hither under the guidance of intelligent 
and distinguished leaders, and laid the basis of an in- 
numerable people in the best principles and habits of 
religious toleration, political independence, and social 
virtue. These early colonists fled from civil and reli- 
gious persecution in their native country, to find an 
asylum in this western w orld ; and have given birth to 
a people, who still retain the puritanical precision, the 
stem republicanism, and the daring intrepidity of their 
ancestors. New-England was settled altogether by 
Englishmen, except an Irish colony in the hilly part of 
one county of Massachusetts, and a few Scottish and 
Irish settlements in New-Hampshire. With these ex- 
ceptions, the New-England population is, at this hour, 
entirely of English origin. The same source also sup- 
plies a great majority of the people in the middle, and 
a still larger proportion in the southern States. The 
Germans make about a fourth of the population of 
Pennsylvania and a part of the inhabitants of New-York 
and New-Jersey. They arc, however, fast yielding 
their language, habits, and customs to the predominance 
of the English. The same may be said of the Dutch 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 387 

settled In New- York, New-Jersey, and Pennsylvania. 
A few French Protestants settled at New Rochelle and 
Staten-Island, in the State of New-York, and in Charles- 
ton, South-Carolina. The Irish emigrants are found 
chiefly in Pennsylvania and Maryland ; and many are 
scattered over New- York, New-Jersey, Kentucky, and 
some other States. Those who are Papists, from the 
middle and south of Ireland, compose the bulk of the 
day labourers in our large cities ; the Protestants from 
the north of Ireland, generally become agriculturists in 
the interior of the country. 

The Scottish, who are generally intelligent, indus- 
trious, good citizens, have settlements in New-Hamp- 
shire, New-York, New-Jersey, Pennsylvania, and 
North-Carolina. Some Swedes are found in New- 
Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland; and some Swiss 
are settled in the State of Indiana. Some small Welsh 
settlements have been made in Pennsylvania and New- 
York. The new States, which are continually rising, 
like exhalations from the earth, in the western country^ 
and denoting a growth of population, rapid and gigan- 
tic, beyond all parallel in the history of nations, are 
supplied with settlers chiefly from the annual surplus of 
New-England, which indeed has been, for many years, 
the afficina gentium to the States of New-York, Ohio, 
Kentucky, and all the interminable regions of the west. 

The accessions from foreign countries make but a 
small proportion of the aggregate of American popu- 
lation. From 1785 to 1815, the annual importation of 
foreigners into the United States did not exceed five 
thousand. Since that period the European migrations 
hither have been more abundant. Of these, the French, 
in great numbers, direct their steps to the Alabama 
territory ; and the Irish are endeavouring, under the 
auspices of Mr. Emmet, of New-York, to get up an 
Hibernian colony in the Illinois country. Many of our 
imported foreigners are the lees and dregs, the refuse, 
the vilest specimens of Irish and English population, 
who reside chiefly in the large cities on our seaboard, 
and show forth their patriotism by incessantly vilifying 



388 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

all the institutions of their native country, and by vio- 
lating the laws of their adopted nation. The propor- 
tion of these imported politicians, however, to the whole 
community, is not great. The New-England States, 
throughout, are unpolluted with the mixture of foreign 
population ; and our yeomanry, generally, all over the 
Union, are native Americans. 

Full one million seven hundred thousand negroes are 
held as slaves in the United States, which also contain 
upAvards of two hundred thousand /rce people of colour. 
Both these classes, however, acquire occasionally an ad- 
mixture of the blood of the white portion of our popula- 
tion, and tlie mestizos are gaining fast in number upon 
the blacks. The great body of American negroes are 
to be found in our Southern States. 

The experience of all history proves, that the struc- 
ture of society in slave-holding countries, is unfavourable 
to internal security and peace at all times ; and still 
more so to security and strength in the season of foreign 
warfare. Indeed, all moral evil possesses a dreadful 
power of perpetuating and augmenting its own atrocity ; 
whence, the evil of slavery once established, scarcely 
admits of remedy ; because the emancipation of slaves 
in large masses, is nearly, if not quite impracticable ; the 
difference between the habits of a slave and those of a 
free citizen being wide as the poles asunder. A slave 
is ignorant of the very elements of industry^ which is the 
basis of all social prosperity. While in bondage he 
only obeys the impulse of another's will, he is ac- 
tuated by no other motive than the dread of the lash; 
whereas when made free, he must think, will, plan, pro- 
vide for himself and familj', and perform all the duties 
of a citizen. It is necessary to make a slave a man, an 
animal capable of thought and reflection, before he is 
made a free man. The slave, recently liberated, has 
experienced only the most laborious and irksome of the 
occupations of a citizen, and not having learned any 
forecast, is unwilling to toil when free. The negroes 
of St. Domingo at tirst knew only the two extremes of 
slavery and rebellion ; afterward they experienced the 



I RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 339 

blessings of military despotism, under the pressure of 
which, they at this hour bend and groan ; and it is not 
easy to determine from which of these three miserable 
states, the transition to the social and orderly rank of a 
free citizen is most difficult. 

Besides, our slaves are in a very uncivilized state ; 
and, as is peculiarly exemplified in our aboriginal In- 
dians, the industry of a savage, his habits of voluntary 
obedience, his perception of pohtical rights, his capacity 
of becoming the citizen of a regular community, is still 
lower than that of a mere slave. He is quite ignorant 
of the necessity of voluntary exertion and peaceable 
submission, which forms the strongest cement of civil- 
ized society. Savages know no medium between the 
extremes of unlimited servility and uncontrolled despot- 
ism ; among them it is the lot of the slave to obey and 
toil, the privilege of the master to command and be 
idle. This is manifested all over the coast of Africa, 
where the sable chiefs exercise absolute sway over 
their wretched subjects, or slaves. We are not, there- 
fore, to expect, that a body of em?ncipated slaves, 
whether emancipated by manumission or rebellion, can be 
converted into a community of free citizens, living under 
a regular government and equitable laws. Much in- 
struction on this point, may be derived from a careful 
perusal of Mr. Brougham's very able and learned work 
on " Colotiial Policy ;" and Sir James Lucas Yeo's re- 
cent letter to Mr. Croker contains some very interest- 
ing information respecting the condition and conduct of 
the free negro colony at Sierra Leone. 

The experience of St. Domingo, for nearly twenty- 
five years past, proves that revolted slaves are incapa- 
ble of receiving and enjoying the blessings of free 
institutions; for they have only exchanged the horrors 
of civil bondage for those of military despotism. Ancl 
the emancipated negroes of Massachusetts prove, that 
such an order of beings have not the capacity of avail- 
ing themselves of the benefits of civil liberty. For in 
that State, where slavery is abolished by law, and which 
consequently, opens an asylum to fugitive slaves from 



390 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

neighbouring States, the negroes do not keep up their 
stock of population, bj the help both of native breed- 
ing and runaway importation ; so improvident, so help- 
less, so wanting in all those habits of steady and useful 
industry, which are essentially necessary to enable the 
citizens of a free community to obtain a competent sup- 
port for themselves and a growing family, have they 
been rendered by a long continuance of slavery, either 
in their oAvn persons, or in those of their immediate pro- 
genitors; and by their almost total destitution, even of 
the rudest elements of civilization and culture. 

This incapacity for receiving and profiting by the 
precious boon of liberty, would be still more visible in 
the event of emancipating the slaves of our southern 
States ; because their negroes are much more numerous, 
and have always been more harshly treated, than those 
of Massachusetts ! For the peculiar situation of the 
negroes under such circumstances, would tend very lit- 
tle to promote their contentment, or peaceable demean- 
or, or regular industry. They would form the loAvest 
part of the community, destitute of property, and there- 
ibre unable to enjoy some of the most essential political 
privileges, and toiling for a bare subsistence. It is to be 
feared, therefore, that our southern negroes, while la- 
bouring under the double curse of slavery and want of 
civilization, can only be kept in subjection by their white 
masters, so long as they are kept in chains. The day 
that breaks the fetters of a slave, destroys the authority, 
and endangers the security of his lord. Whilst the 
slave-holding system exists, the division of the negroes, 
the vigilance of the overseer, the fear of the driver's 
lash, and the horrible torments inflicted upon servile con- 
tumacy, may prevent the blacks from uniting and extir- 
pating their masters. Although Mr. John Randolph, 
on the floor of Congress, declared, that even now, when- 
ever tlie midnight bell tolls the alarm of fire in any of 
the towns or cities of Virginia, every mother clasps her 
infant to her bosom, in agonizing expectation, that the 
locsin is sounding the cry of a general negro insurrec- 
tion ; and warning the devoted victims of the near ap- 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 39 1 

preach of indiscriminate pillage, rape, murder, and con- 
flagration. 

Thus the modern system of negro slavery^ as it pre- 
vails in the European colonies, and in this free republic, 
is one entire circle of evil. It not only creates an enor- 
mous mass of physical suffering and moral guilt, during 
the continuance of the negroes in the fetters of personal 
bondage ; but also, by brutahzing their bodies, by dark- 
ening their understanding, by corrupting their hearts, it 
jncapacitates them for receiving and using the privileges 
and blessings of civil and religious liberty ; whence this 
system, as it now flourishes among nations calling them- 
selves Christian, provides, by the very atrocity and vast 
aggregate amount of its own guilt, for its own frightful 
perpetuity. 

In our southern States, the slaves are not often allowed 
to profit hj religious instruction ; their masters having 
an absolute property in their bodies, are apt to consider 
their souls as thrown into the bargain, and seldom sufler 
the mild light of revelation to irradiate the gloom of 
their desolate condition. T\ie free blacks which swarm 
in our northern and middle States, are generally idle, 
vitious, and profligate, with very little sense of moral 
obligation to deter them from lying, thieving, and still 
more atrocious crimes. For some winters past, a gang 
of free blacks used to amuse themselves in the city of 
New-York, by setting fire to whole rows of houses, for 
the purpose of pilfering amidst the confusion and horror 
of the flames. In the winter of 1816-17 a negro was 
hanged for this crime, and fires have been proportionally 
scarce in New- York ever since. A hint this, which 
might be rendered profitable, if our State legislature 
would strengthen the criminal code, and recommend our 
house-breakers, highway-robbers^ and forgers^ to the gal- 
lows, instead of providing them with a comfortable do- 
micile in the state-prison for a season, and then letting 
them out to renew their depredations upon the public. 

Of late, however, some philanthropists, among whom 
the Friejids or Quakers (as they always do in every 
work of benevolence aad usefulness,) bear a distinguish- 



392 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

ed part, have endeavoured to meliorate the moral con- 
dition of the free blacks in the Northern and Middle 
States. In consequence of which, African schools and 
churches have risen up, and black teachers and preach- 
ers have shown themselves as competent to perform 
their important functions as their white brethren. Doubt- 
Jess, the only possible means of rendering these negroes 
honest, industrious, and provident, are to be found in 
the general diffusion of religious and moral instruction 
among them. And it is certainly high time to refute, by 
practical proof, the assertion of Mr. Jefferson, in his 
Notes on Virginia, that the negroes are a race of animals 
inferior to man. A few ages of civil liberty and gene- 
ral education, would silence this cavil of infidelity 
against the Scriptural doctrine, that God made of one 
blood all the nations of the earth. 

As religion is the great basis of national character, it 
is necessary to examine its effects in relation to the Uni- 
ted States. In the " Resources of the British Empire,'' 
beginning at page 377, are adduced reasons to show 
the intimate connexion between the piety and prosperi- 
ty of nations, and conversely ; the necessity and impor- 
tance of national^ as contradistinguished from personal, 
religion, that is to say, the acknowledgment of God, as 
the Governor of the world, by the state or govern- 
ment, as the representative of the community; and the 
inestimable benefits resultinjj from a general diffusion of 
individual or personal religion. 

Indeed, the voice of all history, which is emphatically 
the voice of philosophy speaking by example, Avarns us, 
that every nation which has broken asunder the bonds 
of religion, whether founded on the light of natural con- 
science, inherent in the heart of every man, or upon the 
clearer light of Revelation from Heaven, has invariably 
given itself up to every species of profligacy ; untying 
all the ligaments of social virtue, and stifling in lust and 
bloo(i every dear relation, every domestic charity of pa- 
rental, conjugal, and filial duty. When ancient Persia 
departed from the simplicity and purity of the religious 
institutions of the elder Cyrus, she fell headlong into all 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES, 393 

the corruptions of effeminate immorality; and sunk in 
the dastardly enervation of universal vice, yielded her 
extended empire to the yoke of a foreign conqueror. 
When the ancient Republics of Greece exchanged the 
simple maxims of their pristine religion for the general 
prevalence of philosophical unbelief, they degenerated 
into universal sensualism ; and all classes of the com- 
munity, setting themselves in open sale to the highest 
bidder, followed their clamorous and ignorant dema- 
gogues throughout all the gradations of domestic anar- 
chy, weakness, and corruption, into the sepulchral sleep 
of external despotism. When Rome, despising the re- 
ligious reverence of her republican ancestors, ceased to 
regard the obligations of an oath, and cultivating gene- 
rally the atheistic materialism of her infidel philosophers, 
practised with unblushing impudence every crime of 
violence and fraud, she fell from her high estate of na- 
tional glory, into the despicable meanness of unrestrain- 
ed democracy; whence, by an easy, quick, and natural 
transition, she passed into the kindred bondage of sin- 
gle military tyranny ; and finally bowed her imperial 
head beneath the sterner morality and superior prowess 
of the Barbarians of the North. 

In later times, Continental Europe has read a memora- 
ble lesson to all nations and ages, of the inevitable ruin 
attached to a wilful departure from the doctrines and 
duties of Heaven's last best gift to man, reyca/ec? religion. 
During the greater part of the eighteenth century, the 
kings and princes, the nobles and ambassadors, the po- 
liticians, writers, and people of almost every nation on 
the European continent, strove in wretched rivalry for a 
vile pre-eminence in the guilt of rejecting the Scriptures 
of God, and calumniating the religion of Christ. As the 
necessary consequence of this universal speculative un- 
belief, as universal a deluge of immorality, baseness, and 
corruption, private and public, national as v/ell as indi- 
vidual, flooded their foul and feculent streams of pollu- 
tion over all the surface of Continental Europe. And 
what has been the great practical commentary which 
.'^hovah himself has given upon the impious text of this 

50 



394 



IlESOURClii Oh THE UNITED STATES, 



new philosophy ? For the space of five-and-twenty years- 
every nominally Christian nation on the European con- 
tinent, has been Avastcd by fire, and sword, and pesti- 
lence ; bv famine, and internal broil, and foreign inva- 
sion; not a single country within the verge oi Conti- 
nental European Christendom, has escaped the terrible 
lustration of human blood. 

And have these United States no cause of similar 
alarm ? Cannot they read the same handwriting upon 
the wall, which declared to the kindred nations of Eu- 
rope, that they had been weighed in the balance and 
were found wanting ? When the purer light of Chris- 
tianity is corrupted and darkened in the Eastern sec- 
tion of our Union, and the Revelation of God too gene- 
rally rejected in the Southern and Western extremities 
of the Commonwealth, have we any right to expect that 
this country will escape those national visitations, which 
the European Continent has so abundantly reaped in a 
full harvest of agony and ruin ? The late President 
Dwight declared, in 1812, that there were three millions 
of souls in the United States, entirely destitute of all 
religions ordinances and worship. It is also asserted, 
by good authority, that in the southern and western 
States societies exist, built on the model of the Transal- 
pine clubs in Italy, and the Atheistic assemblies of 
France and Germany, and, like them, incessantly la- 
bouring to root out every vestige of Christianity. So 
that, in the lapse of a few years, we are in danger of 
being overrun with unbaptized infidels, the most atro- 
cious and remorseless banditti that infest and desolate 
human society. 

Indeed, many serious people doubt the permanence 
of the Federal Constitution, because in that national 
compact there is no reference to the Providence of God: 
" IVc the people j'"' being the constitutional substitute of Je- 
hovah. Of national religion we have not much to boast ; 
a few of our State governments, particularly in New- 
England, and recently in New-York, do acknowledge 
God as the governor among the nations, and occasion- 
ally recommend (for they have no power to appoint) 



RESOURCES OF TffE UNITED STATES. 395 

days to be set apart for general fasting, and prayer, and 
thanksgiving. But the greater number of the States 
declare it to be unconstitutional to refer to the Provi- 
dence of God in any of their public acts ; and Virginia 
carries this doctrine so far, as not to allow any Chaplain 
to officiate in her State legislature ; giving as a reason, 
by an overwhelming majority of her representatives, in 
December, 1817, that the Constitution permits no one 
religious sect to have preference to any other ; and 
therefore, as a Chaplain must belong to some sect, it 
would be unconstitutional for the Virginian legislators 
to listen to his preaching or prayers. 

In the winter of 1814-15, the legislature of Louisiana 
rejected by an immense majority, a bill " For the bet- 
ter observance of the Sabbath; for punishing the crime 
of sodomy ; for preventing the defacing of the Church- 
yards ; for shutting the theatres and stores an Sunday ; 
and for other purposes." The chief opposer of the 
bill declaring, on the legislative floor, " that such per- 
secuting intolerance might well suit the New-England 
puritans, who were descended from the bigoted fana- 
tics of old England, who were great readers of the Bi- 
ble, and, consequently^ ignorant, prejudiced, cold-blooded, 
false, and cruel ; but could never be fastened on the 
more enlightened, liberal, and philosophical inhabitants 
of Louisiana, the descendants of Frenchmen." 

In this respect the Louisianians have shown their 
kindred to the regenerated citizens of mot^ern France, 
who have compelled Louis the eighteenth to repeal his 
decree for enforcing a decent respect to the Sabbath; 
and the Sunday now is, as it was during the revolution, 
a day of business, or pleasure, ivithout any regard or 
reference to the divine founder of the Christian dispen- 
sation. 

It was reserved for th^ illumined sages of the eigh- 
teenth century of the Christian era to discover, that 
religion was the cause of all the political evils which 
deform human soo^ty. The Egyptian, Persian, Gre- 
cian, and Roman legislators all deemed it necessary to 
laj the foundation of their municipal codes upon the 



396 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

broad basis of religious sanction. Not a single philoso- 
pher, statesman, or sovereign Is to be found in all the 
records of heathen antiquity, who ever for a moment 
doubted that some higher bond of obligation, than can 
possibly be derived from the exterior ligaments of hu- 
man law, is indispensable to connect together communi- 
ties of men in firm and lasting ties. They knew full 
well, that without a direct appeal to the tribunal ot 
natural conscience, without the religious obligation of 
an oath, without the internal safeguard of an habitual 
watch over the thoughts of the heart, regulating an 
innumerable multitude of words and deeds, which no 
human laws can touch, but which, according to their 
good or evil direction, either adorn or dishonour the 
aggregate of life, no community of men can long flourish 
in personal virtue, or national prosperity. What human 
laws can regulate the intercourse of benevolence and 
gratitude between the rich and poor, or measure out 
the affection that ought to be shown to a parent, wife, 
or child ? Or prescribe the limits of friendship, or gra- 
duate the scale of punishment to the numberless tres- 
passes against the duties of affection and charity ? In 
all these, and countless other instances, religion alone 
can bind the obligation and measure of duty upon the 
heart. Where the authority and power of man reach 
not, the arm of God alone can guide the footsteps of 
human conduct. 

Revolutiormry France possesses the execrable honour 
of having first reduced individual and national atheism 
to a regular systeni. hi the beginning of the ] 8th cen- 
tury, Mr. Bayle, wVo had escaped from the fangs of 
the Doctors of the Sorbonne, at Paris, into the marshes 
of Holland, undertook to teach Europe that a nation of 
atheists must, Infallibly, be Wtter governed than a coun- 
try of Christians ; because, Vieing freed from all the 
restraints of religious prejudice, they would be at liberty 
to follow the pure impulses of a vVtuous and unimpeded 
nature. Bishop W^arburton, in h'.s Divitie Legation^ 
and President Montesquieu, in his Esprit des Loix, both 
laboured, la opposition to Bayle's doarine, to prove, 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 39^7 

that a society of atheists could not be held together, for 
want of a bond of mutual obligation alike binding upon 
all. For an atheist, not allowing the authority of any 
higher tribunal than his own estimate of his own self-in- 
terest, will break any human law, whenever, according 
to his own calculations, it would be advantageous to him; 
and provided also he could elude personal punishment. 
But the disciples of Bayle, the metaphysical and poli- 
tical doctors of the French revolution, Helvetius, Ray- 
nal, D'Alembert, Condorcet, Diderot, and all the rest of 
those brilliant banditti, who set fire to the four corners 
of the world ; improving on their master's hint, united 
all the force of perverted genius, misapplied learning, 
ill-directed science, dazzhng declamation, glittering wit, 
and habitual sophistry, in order to persuade men, that 
all the political evils which disfigure the earth, flowed 
immediately from the existence and support of the 
Christian religion ; and that mankind could not fail of 
enjoying uninterrupted beatitude, if they would only 
eradicate every vestige of Christianity from the human 
heart and conduct. 

Revolutionary France tried the grand experiment; she 
abolished Christianity, declared death to be an eternal 
sleep, passed a decree denouncing terrible vengeance 
against all who believed in the existence of a God, wor- 
shipped the perfection of human reason in the person 
of a prostitute, and placed her on that same altar, wliich 
had been reared by the hand of adoration to the Lord 
Jesus Christ himself; pronounced marriage an unholy 
monopoly, and stigmatized all the feefings and affec- 
tions of parents, brethren, and children, as vulgar and 
unphilosophical prejudices. From July 1792, to iMarch 
1796, it was death by law in France, for any one to 
pronounce the name of God or Christ, except in exe- 
cration; and during this period, many thousands of 
men, women, and children, were actually murdered by 
law, for the crime of professing themselves to be Chris- 
tians. Acting upon these enlightened views, and ori- 
ginal discoveries, the French nation proceeded to mur- 
der their lawful sovereign, to butcher their ancient no- 



293 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

bility and established clergy; to proclaim and enforce 
an indiscriminate pillage of all public and private pro- 
perty, to bathe their hands in each other's life, to exalt 
a midnight assassin to an imperial throne, to cradle the 
new-born dynasty of an upstart ruffian in tears and 
blood, to convert all France into one universal brothel, 
one universal slaughter-house. 

As the other nations of Continental Europe, follow- 
ed with too fatal a facility, the footsteps of French 
illumination, jacobin and atheistic France, finding a 
bosom friend in the atheism and jacobinism of the rest 
of the European continent, was soon enabled by the 
poison of fraud, and the force of arms, to triumph over 
all the religious, moral, and social establishments of 
Christendom. Thrones were overturned, and the 
altars of God trampled down beneath the cloven hoof 
of impiety ; the rich were despoiled of their posses- 
sions, and all the people in one undistinguished mass, 
crushed beneath the great nether millstone of an op- 
pression unparalleled in the annals of remorseless tyran- 
ny. Nor was the tide of Gallic invasion ever rolled 
back, nor its career of victory checked, until the prin- 
ces and people of continental Europe had been lashed 
by the scorpion-whip of long continued calamity and 
insult, into the full conviction that the new philosophy 
is the unerring road to personal and national ruin. 
Accordingly, when they had been sufficiently disciplin- 
ed in the severe, but salutary school of suffering, the 
European nations, from the north and from the south, 
from the east and from the west, of their populous 
continent, returned to the good old way of reverence 
to God, integrity towards man, and high-hearted loyalty 
to their native land; and rallying from all quarters 
under the banners of a legitimate patriotism, routed the 
hordes of Gallic philosophy, drove them back confound- 
ed within the borders of their own dominions, and in 
the heart of France stifled jacobinism in its own life's 
blood. 

At the advent of the Messiah, the greater portion of 
the known world was under the dominion of^ one em- 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 399 

pire. Knowledge and civilization had reached a higher 
point of excellence than at any preceding period. This 
general and excessive intellectual culture was accom- 
panied with a correspondingly general and excessive 
immorality. A fact in itself amounting to a demonstra- 
tion, that the mere improvement of the mind can do 
nothing towards removing or amending the natural de- 
pravity of the human heart. At this time the Greek 
and Latin languages had reached their summit of per- 
fection. They divided between themselves the intel- 
lectual dominions of the whole empire. The Latin 
predominated over the western, the Greek over the 
eastern section of imperial Rome. The ancient dialects 
of Italy, the languages of Africa, Spain, Gaul, Britain, 
and Pannonia, had all retired before the use of the Ro- 
man tongue. The Greek was the language of science 
and literature, the Latin that of all public transactions, 
laws, ordinances, and institutions of government. Well 
educated men were alike conversant with both. All 
the knowledge then afloat in the world, was concentra- 
ted in one focus of brightness by the best writers of 
Greece and Rome. Art, and nature, and science, were 
ransacked, explored, exhausted ; to furnish the poet 
with splendid imagery; to emblazon the eloquence of 
the orator, to sharpen the weapons of the dialectician ; 
to point the sting of the satyrist ; to round the period 
of the philosopher; to swell the pomp of learning. 

But in the midst of all this blaze of intellectual glory, 
what was the condition of the human heart ? The heart 
of man was at this time darker and more hideous than 
the sepulchre of death. The barriers of moral decency 
were broken down ; every crime, and every abomi- 
nation, was either perpetrated, or tolerated ; public 
profligacy and private vice had converted the whole 
earth into one vast charnel-house of atrocity and horror. 
All the profane historians and annalists of that period, 
bear testimony to the charges against the heathen 
world, which the holy Spirit of God put? into the mouth 
of the apostle of the GeYitiles-. 



400 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

* 

Such was the deplorable condition of the mora] world, 
when the Sun of Kio^hteousness arose with healinjr in 
his wings, and the darkest recesses of the human heart 
were illumined with the light of hfe. Wherever Chris- 
tianity has prevailed in its purity, and precisely in pro- 
portion to the evangelism of its doctrines ; setting forth 
the fall of man from his primeval innocence ; the original 
and natural depravity of the human heart; the justifica- 
tion of sinners by Jesus Christ ; the sanctlfication of the 
human spirit by the Holy Ghost; the Godhead of the 
three Divine Persons in one mysterious Trinity ; have 
individual purity of morals, and national prosperity and 
happiness uniformly flourished. Wherever Christianity 
spread its mild and benignant light, the waste and wil- 
derness of life began to bloom as the paradise of God ; 
the nations of the earth became purified and exalted in 
all their moral and intellectual faculties, they were freed 
from the fetters of political, social, and domestic slavery ; 
they were more advanced in skill and knowledge, more 
deeply versed in science, more accomplished in litera- 
ture, more alive to industry and enterprise, more refined 
in all social intercourse, more adorned with every nobler 
virtue, and every polished grace, more benevolent to 
man, more devoted to God. 

But the dawning of this brightest day was soon over- 
cast with clouds and thick darkness; superstition soon 
poisoned the waters of life in their springs, and in their 
sources ; a superstition which lulled to rest all fears of 
future punishment, while it sanctioned and encouraged 
the commission of every crime ; which held out incite- 
ments to the most profligate ambition, and provided for 
the indulgence of the most sensual sloth; a superstition, 
Avhose imposing ceremonies were Interwoven with all 
the institutions of society; and whose spirit of delusion 
was diflused throughout all the principles of ciyil go- 
vernment. The corruptions of Christianity soon begart 
to darken, and gradually to extinguish the lights of the 
understanding, and the sensibilities of the heart; so that 
a greater and more stupendous mass of ignorance and 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES- 4()1 

iniquity, than had ever yet oppressed the earth, was ex- 
hibited in the moral and intellectual death of ten suc- 
cessive centuries. The whole circumference of Chris- 
tendom was veiled in the darkest pall of civil and 
religious bondage ; the human conscience was benighted 
amidst the terrors of the dungeon, the rack, the gibbet, 
and the flame ; and the persons of men were delivered 
over a prey to the perpetuity of feudal anarchy and 
horror. 

In the midst of this noon of night, it pleased Divine 
Providence again to interpose for the benefit of human 
kind ; the Spirit of God again moved upon the moral 
and intellectual chaos, and in the fulness of his own ap- 
pointed time, he raised up Luther, and Calvin, and Knox, 
and an innumerable army of saints and martyrs, at the 
era of the Reformation^ to bring back the children of 
disobedience from the error of their ways to the wisdom 
of the just ; to teach men the pure doctrines of revela- 
tion; to be the means of enlightening the mind, and 
amending the heart of all the forlorn beings that were 
slumbering in the confines of darkness, or trembling 
under the shadow of death. Then, indeed, arose a new 
order of things ; the human heart swelled with the sub- 
limest raptures of spiritual devotion; all the charities 
of father, husband, son, and brother, were mingled in 
every life-throb of the bosom; substantial integrity and 
habitual courtesy at once supported and embellished the 
whole fabric of society; the mind of man sprang up- 
ward like a pyramid of fire, and by its blaze of intellec- 
tual light, dissipated the Stygian darkoess of the middle 
ages ; and an uninterrupted chain of progressive im- 
provement, united together all the intelligent minds of 
reillumined Christendom. 

But man, weak, frail, unsubstantial man, the changling 
of an hour, ever prone to pass from one into the other 
extreme, soon vibrated from the grossest superstition 
into the most obdurate unbelief. And we, who now 
live upon the earth, are doomed to Avitness this last and 
most dreadful of all the eras of humgn depravity, that 

51 



4Q2 RESOURCES Ol' THE UNITED STATES 

of general profligate infidelity. The light of religion be- 
ing quenched, that of moral philosophy is speedily swal- 
lowed up in the sunounding darkness; all the duties of 
moral obligation having no other basis, than the will of 
God revealed to man in his inspired word. All political 
studies are proscribed, lest they should point out the 
path to civil and religious liberty. No moral culture is 
encouraged, and no mtellectual improvement permitted, 
save that which teaches the more speedy accomplish- 
ment of the works of blood and desolation ; which makes 
war more frequent, more extensive, more murderous. 
Whence, a few ages o{ infidelity would roll back the na- 
tions of the earth into all the barbarism of universal 
ignorance ; into all the abominations of universal iniqui- 
ty. To this most deplorable condition was the Euro- 
pean Continent verging rapidly, under the iffidei do- 
minion of Revolutionary France. 

Let us pause a moment, and resurvey the threefold 
progressive augmentation of heavenly light, accompa- 
nied with a threefold progressive deterioration of human 
depravity. 

When man had only the lesser light of natural con- 
science to guide his uncertain steps through the mazes 
of moral duty, the Pagan worla, although partially 
illumined in intellect, was immersed in the grossness and 
profligacy of vice. Yet were the heathens superior, 
both in doctrine and practice, to the grand corrupters of 
Christianity, whose superstition polluted the greater 
light of revelation, and approximated the human animal 
nearer to the brute beast m understanding, and to the 
fiend in iniquity. But the total rejection ol the greater 
light of revelation produces a more impenetrable dark- 
ness of the understanding, and a more entire depravity 
of the heart than ever arose from the united efforts of 
the corruption of Christianity and perversion of the na- 
tural conscience. So that the world now presents the 
spectacle of the greatest light of mind and most unspot- 
ted purity of heart, in those countries where the unso- 
phisticated Gospel is believed, contrasted with the mid- 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 4Q3 

night of the intellect and the loathsome iniquity of those 
regions, which have cast oflf all allegiance to God and to 
his Christ. 

The influence of injiddity^ like the baneful Upas, lays 
the hand of death upon all that it touches ; it corrupts 
the morals, debases the intellect, perverts the resources, 
tarnishes the character, annihilates the honour, of every 
people whom it enfolds in the harlotry of its embrace ; 
it rolls together as a scroll all the rights and liberties of 
civilized society; it casts that scroll into the fire of hell; 
feeding upon the misery of man, it cuts oflf every retreat 
from virtue and happiness into human intercourse ; it 
lays for ever low in an untimely tomb, all that dignity, 
tenderness, wisdom, charity, affection, and confidence 
can add of lustre and of love to the children of mortali- 
ty; it has never failed, wheresoever it has rolled its wa- 
ters of bitterness and death, to sweep away all the an- 
cient boundaries and landmarks of human improvement ; 
it has rolled its stream of ruin over all the art and pride 
of Egypt, Greece, and Italy, and every other region, 
waste or cultivated, wholesome or poisonous, in the 
earth; it has polluted the shades of learning and science, 
laid open and desolate the properties of men, levelled 
the temples, and destroyed the altars of the living God ; 
scattered to the wild fury of the winds every hope and 
every production of nature that looks upward to the 
Heavens ; and after undermining all the props and but- 
tresses of social order that have been reared and 
strengthened by the labours of hereditary ages; after 
washmg down into the mire of desolation kingdoms, and 
nations, and empires, and people, and languages ; so that 
before it the earth was as the garden of Eden, and be- 
hind it a deserted waste ; it plunges itself, together with 
all that it encircles, into the gulf of remediless perdi- 
tion. 

In i\ie present state of the world, infidelity is closely 
allied with the revohuionary question; and, generally 
speaking, those who are eager to revolutionize all exist- 
ing governments, under the ostensible pretence of pro- 
moting the liberty and prosperity of mankind, are alike 



404 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

infidels in precept and in practice. But these patriotic 
politicians widely mistake the matter, for all past expe- 
rience shows, that civil liberty and national prosperity 
always flourish most where pure Christianity prevails ; 
and that despotism is the most unrestrained and cruel, 
and public happiness most completely stifled, where un- 
belief predominates. This was strongly exemplified in 
the contrasted condition of Britain and France, during 
the revolutionary conflict. France^ during that awful 
period, was a prey to the worst species of desolation; 
her whole people, let loose from the salutary restraints 
of religious and moral obligation, presented the hideous 
spectacle of one entire mass of systematic and legalized 
corruption ; her agriculture Avas neglected, her external 
commerce annihilated, her internal trade stagnant, her 
manufactures drooping, her science and literature dark- 
ened almost to extinction ; her whole community groan- 
ed under the most sanguinary and remorseless tyranny 
that ever crushed the heart of man to the earth ; her 
sons were dra^ired in chains, to whiten with their bones 
and moisten with their blood, the soil of far-distant lands, 
while her own deserted widows and fatherless babes lay 
mouldering in unburied heaps throughout every nook 
and corner of her swollen and overgrown empire. Du- 
ring this same period, the British people were protected 
in their equal rights by the unstained administration oi 
equal justice ; the full security of hfe, liberty, and pro- 
perty, was preserved to all ; a continual accumulation 
of wealth pervaded all the departments of her domi- 
nions, which exhibited an improved and improving sys- 
tem of agriculture, an extensive and extending commerce, 
manufactures thriving and increasing, the arts liberally 
patronized, science and literature in all their branches 
promoted ; their lands, canals, houses, rivers, presenting 
the most unequivocal proofs of progressive industry ana 
prosperity ; the people advancing in pure religion and 
sound morals, steady in their habits and manners ; 
whence resulted the enlargement of their territorial pos- 
sessions by honourable conquest; their inexhaustible 
stock of talents, the living genius of freedom and intelli- 



llESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 405 

gence, which explored the powers and recesses of na- 
ture, to abridge the labours and embellish the produc- 
tions of art; rendering knowledge tributary to the 
wants, the comforts, and the enjoyments, not only of 
their own offspring, but also of the whole human race. 

M. Talleyrand observes, that he was particularly 
struck with the calmness, in relation to religion, evidenced 
in the United States, so contrary to the zeal and enthu- 
siasm displayed in England ; and he attributes it to a 
variety of causes, some of which it may be well to men- 
tion. He supposes that the first and most important 
consideration in a new country is to increase its riches ; 
that the proof of such a disposition manifests itself every 
where in America; and that we find evidence of it in 
every part of their conduct; and that the customs, with 
regard to religion itself, are strongly tinctured with this 
prevailing disposition. In England religion has always 
exercised a powerful influence over the national mind 
and character of the people ; in that country the great- 
est philosophers and profoundest sages have cast the 
sanctity of religion over their most intense and various 
intellectual pursuits. Since the age in which Luther 
first peered above the horizon, as the morning star of 
the Reformation, numerous sects and denominations of 
Christianity have either sprung up in England, or found 
their way thither from other countries. And, although 
in general the great national establishment of the church, 
together with nearly a full toleration of other persua- 
sions, has maintained a general current of tranquillity 
and peace within the bosom of the British isles ; yet, 
occasionally, the temporary ascendency and fierce fana- 
ticism of some of the other denominations have wrought 
sudden and great political changes in that nation. 

All these various Christian denominations have been 
transplanted into America ; and several of the separate 
States actually owe their political origin to the exclusive 
emigrations of some of these sects. It was, therefore, 
to be expected that these religious emigrants would, 
after their transmigration, continue to maintain their 
original state and character, and frequently convulse 



405 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

and agitate the American body politic. But, although 
for a time religion appeared to give a cast of national 
character to the original pilgrims, and their immediate 
descendants, yet those distinguishing features gradually 
disappeared, and religion in the United States has gra- 
dually settled down into the level of a mere personal, 
portable secret, instead of continuing to be what it yet 
remains in England — a kindred (ire, flaming with elec- 
trical diffusion, from heart to heart, and lighting up the 
glow of general enthusiasm among the people. In the 
United States all the various religious sects seem to co- 
exist in a calm, unruffled atmosphere. It is not very 
uncommon for the father, mother, and children of the 
same family, each to follow, without opposition, their 
respective modes of worship ; a spectacle that seldom 
occurs in Europe, where religion, when It operates at 
all, actuates not only Individuals, but masses of men, in 
their joint views and combined exertions. 

Hence, no leader of any religious persuasion in the 
United States, however ardent may be his own zeal, 
and however vigorous and Incessant his own efforts, can 
induce his followers to labour to aggrandize that sect, 
with as much effectual exertion as he could, under the 
same circumstances, induce a similar body in Europe to 
co-operate with him. On the days of public worship, 
in this country, the Individuals of the same family set 
out together ; each goes to hear the minister of his own 
sect, and they afterward return home to employ them- 
selves, in common. In their domestic concerns. This 
diversity of religious opinion does not seem to produce 
any contradiction or discordance in their sentiments as 
to other things. Whence, if there happens to arrive 
here, from Europe, an ambitious sectary, eager to afford 
a triumph to his own particular tenets, bj^ inflaming the 
passions of men ; so far from finding, as in other coun- 
tries, multitudes disposed to enlist under his banners, 
and ready to second his violence, his very existence is 
scarcely perceived by his nearest neighbours ; his indi- 
vidual enthusiasm is neither attractive, nor interesting, 
nor contagious ; he inspires neither love, nor hatred, nor 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 4()7 

curiosity ; but is suffered to die awaj^ into nothing, be- 
neath the frozen pole of universal indifference. 

This was peculiarly exemplified in Dr. Priestley. 
This heresiarch, and veteran trumpeter of sedition, had 
openly menaced the hierarchy of England and the Bri- 
tish Constitution with speedy destruction. His parti- 
sans followed him, eagerly and blindly, throughout all 
the numberless changes of his ever-shifting religious 
and political creeds ; they poured out at his feet their 
time, their property, their obedience, their acclamation ; 
they enabled him to publish, and circulate widely, his 
pestilent heresies, and malignant invectives against the 
Church and government of England. He sate, like a 
demigod, snuffing up the incense of adulation from the 
Socinian democrats of Great Britain. But how re- 
versed the picture, when he exchanged an English for 
an American home ! A meagre deputation of obscure 
clergymen in our city of New-York welcomed him to 
the United States with an absurd speech, full of jacobin 
bombast ^^ fustian. He afterward repaired to Phi- 
ladelphia, where he preached a few frigorific sermons 
to thin and drowsy audiences; he then retired to 
Northumberland, in Pennsylvania, where he passed 
the remainder of his life in making small experiments 
amidst his alembics, crucibles, and retorts, for the result 
of which no one expressed the least interest; and he 
also occasionally ushered from the press religious and 
political pamphlets, which no one ever read. His death 
excited little, if any more sensation among the Pennsyl- 
vanian patriots than they are wont to exhibit at the dis- 
solution of a German farmer, or a German farmer's 
horse. 

In the United States every one follows, pretty much 
accordmg to his own inclination, his religious opinions, 
and pursues with undivided eagerness his temporal 
concerns. This apparent apathy perhaps arises partly 
from the universal equality of all religious denomina- 
tions. In America no form of worship is prescribed, no 
religious ordinances are established by law ; whence, 



403 RESOUJICES OF TIIE UNITED STATES 

every individual is left at liberty to follow his own will: 
to neglect or cultivate religion as he sees fit. Almost 
all the ardour of the moment that is passing is employed 
in devising the means of acquiring wealth, and promot- 
ing the success of the political party, in which the active 
individuals are enrolled. Hence result a general calm- 
ness and composure in the American community, with 
regard to the personal feelings and universal diffusion 
of religion; and it sometimes happens that Jehovah 
himself is shouldered from the altar peculiarly dedi- 
cated to his solemn services, by the devotedness of the 
whole heart to the shrine of mammon, or to the pur- 
suits and calculations of political intrigue. 

In the United States there is no national Church 
established, no lay-patronage, no system of tithes. The 
people call and support their minister ; few Churches 
navmg sufficient funds to dispense with the necessity of 
contribution by the congregation. The law enforces 
the contract between the Pastor and his flock, and re- 
quires the people to pay the stipulated salary, so long 
as the Clergyman preaches and performs his parochial 
duty, according to the agreement between him and his 
parishioners. In Massachusetts, Vermont, New-Hamp- 
shire, and Connecticut, the law requires each town to 
provide, by taxation, for the support of religious wor- 
ship ; but leaves it optional with every individual to 
choose his own sect. The general government has no 
power to interfere with or regulate the religion of the 
Union, and the States, generally, have not legislated 
farther than to incorporate, with certain restrictions, 
such religious bodies as have applied for charters. In 
consequence of this entire indiiferencc on the part of 
the State governments, full one-third of our whole popu- 
lation are destitute of all religious ordinances ; and a 
much greater proportion in our southern and western 
districts. It is quite just and proper, that no one sect 
should have any preference, either religious or political, 
over the others; but the State governments ought, at 
least, to interfere so far as New-Enjjiand has done, and 



RE6£)UilCES OF THE UNITED STATE?. ^Q9 

enforce by law the maintenance of religious worship in 
every town, leaving the choice of his denomination to 
each individual 

The not interfering at all is a culpable extreme one 
way, as the English system of an exclusive national 
Church, shutting out the other sects from equal political 
privileges, is a mischievous extreme the other. In the 
United Netherlands, in Prussia, in Russia, and even in 
France, all the religious denominations stand on equal 
political ground ; and cannot Britain learn to augment 
her intellectual and moral power, by repealing her test 
and corporation acts, and permitting all her people to 
serve her to the full extent of their capacity, in her civil 
and military functions ? During the time when Russia 
broke down the military strength of revolutionary 
France, the commander in chief of all her armies be- 
longed to the Greek Church, her minister of finance 
was a Protestant, and her Premier was a Papist. Her 
affairs were not the worse conducted, because she dis- 
franchises none of her sects of their political rights, on 
account of their religious opinions. The prominent 
evils of the English Church system are the ministerial 
and lay patronage^ and the tithes. Suppose, for example, 
(as was actually the fact when Lord Bohngbroke served 
Queen Anne,) the British prime minister is an avowed 
infidel, what kind of clergy will he be apt to place in 
the crown livings ? Evangelical men, or careless irre- 
ligious clerks ? The lay patrons also, whether noble 
or gentle, put into the livings, in their gift, pastors, in 
whose call the people have no voice, but are, neverthe- 
less, required to sit under their ministration. Now, if 
the lay patron be not religious, the probability is, that 
his Clergyman shall not be too well acquainted with 
the stupendous scheme of revelation. And, perhaps, 
few things are better calculated to foster the growth of 
infidelity in a country, than putting into any Church 
men who dole out only a little thin, diluted, Sabbatical 
morality once in seven days, instead of expounding the 
great statute book of Christianity, and inculcating the 
characteristic, distinguishing doctrines of the Bible. 

52 



410 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

" Meanwhile, the hungry sheep look up, and are nol 
fed," and yet grave personages profess to marvel at the 
rapid growth of other denominations, whose pastors, on 
moderate stipends, perform faithfully the duties of the 
highest, the holiest, the most important, and the most 
interesting vocation, that can be accorded to man. 

The system of tilhes^ is perhaps the very worst pos- 
sible mode of providing for the clergy that could be 
devised. They impede the progress of agriculture, and 
create perpetual dissensions between the pastor and his 
own people ; and keep in a state of incessant exaspera- 
tion, all those other sects, who dissent from the doctrines 
and government of episcopacy. The tithes take a tenth 
part of the gross pioduce of the land, and consequently 
operate as a tax, oppressive in proportion to the amount 
expended in cultivating, and not to the net profits of the 
land produce; whence, they grow more and more into- 
lerable, as a country expends more and more capital in 
agriculture ; and are a much greater grievance in Eng- 
land now, when so vast an aggregate of farming capital 
is employed, than when agriculture consisted chiefly in 
pasture, and very little money was expended in culture, 
or tillage. Unless the British government shall commute 
the tithe system for some other mode of maintaining the 
national clergy, it will continue an evil, as pernicious as 
the poor laws, the public debt, or the game laivs, all of 
which, are in their nature and amount, singularly op- 
pressive, and two of them tend directly to produce im- 
morality and vice. The tithes amount to nearly otic- 
fourth of the rental of England and Ireland ; to at least 
ten millions sterling a year ; to which add church lands, 
and other property, five millions more, and it gives an 
annual expenditure of fifteen millions sterling, or sixty- 
seven millions of dollars, for tiie maintenance of the 
established church; to whicli add ten miUions for poor 
rates, forty-four millions for the interest of the national 
debt, and twenty-one millions for government expendi- 
ture, amounting in all to ninety millions sterling, or four 
hundred and five millions of dollars a year; an awful 
burden of expenditure on twenty millions of people; 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



411 



averaging nearly five pounds, or at least twenty dollars 
a head, for each inhabitant of the British Isles ; whereas, 
in the United Slates, the whole public expenditure of 
the general government, twenty State governments, the 
poor laws, corporations, and counties, scarcely amount 
to fifty millions of dollars, or five dollars a head for each 
individual of ten millions of people, who are rapidly 
increasing in number, and v/hose immense land resources 
are rising in value every hour. 

In Ireland^ the tithe system is still more oppressive 
than in England. Four-fifths of the population are 
papists; in many parishes all the people are papists, 
having no protestant minister, but the nominal parson 
resides either in England or France, or elsewhere, as 
suits him, and the tithe proctor grinds down the Irish 
farmer and peasant, and perpetuates their abject hope- 
less poverty. 

Our different sects dispute here verbally, and by 
writing pretty much as they do in Europe. But the 
liberal piety of the age, its philosophical spirit and ge- 
nius, the circumstances of Christendom, the prevalence 
of Bible and Missionary Societies, and Sunday Schools, 
all conspire to approximate the different religious per- 
suasions towards each other, in the labours of love, and 
in the beauty of harmony ; to break down the partition 
wall of sectarianism, and to unite all denominations in 
their blessed efforts to spread the light of revealed truth 
over the remotest corners of the globe. It is in vain 
for any church to attempt to uphold its exclusive preten- 
sions against the social institutions, feelings, and habits 
of the country where it is placed ; and still more vain 
to endeavour to revive now, in these United States, the 
intolerant bigotry, which disgraced Europe in the seven- 
teenth century. Lord Clarendon, in his Life of Him- 
self makes some very sagacious observations on the 
manner in which Archbishop Laud, by straining his 
ecclesiastical pretensions too far, and indulging an un- 
bounded lust of clerical domination, brought his royal 
master to the block, and ruined that very church, which 
he so zealously laboured to exalt. 



412 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

The prevailing religious sects in the United States 
are, the Presbyterians, the Independents, the Episcopa- 
lians, Methodists, and Baptists ; of which last persuasion 
there are 2,600 settled, and 1,000 unsettled congrega- 
tions. Pure Episcopacy is in fact an ecclesiastical mo- 
narchy, the Bishop being the executive chief over all 
the clergy of his diocess. It is, however, in this coun- 
try more adapted to the genius of our republican insti- 
tutions than it ever was in England, even before the 
houses of convocation were abolished; for with us, the 
annual state convention consists oi lay delegates as well 
as clergy, the Bishop presiding; and the general con- 
vention, which meets once in three years, is composed of 
all the Bishops in the Union, who form the upper house, 
and of lay delegates and clergy from all the different 
diocesses, who constitute the lower house. Indeed, 
every church must, of necessity, conform its government 
and discipline in some measure to the spirit and sub- 
stance of the social institutions of the country where it 
is fixed. Yet, notwithstanding our republican pohty 
and habits, the Bishops exercise great authority over 
their diocesan clergy, and possess very considerable 
power in regulating and governing the church. 

Presbyterianism, in its government, is a representa- 
tive republic ; its ecclesiastical tribunals, throughout all 
their gradations of church sessions, presbyteries, synods, 
and general assemblies, are composed of an equal num- 
ber of clergy and lay elders, whose votes have all equal 
efficacy, and who transact their business on their delibe- 
rative floor, much in the same manner as do our Con- 
gress and State legislatures. In the Independent Con- 
gregational churches all is carried by universal suffrage 
fn each separate congregation, there being no general 
ecclesiastical tribunal to which may be referred the gra- 
ver matters of doctrine and discipline; but all being 
submitted, finally and without appeal, to the votes, male 
and female, of each single audience. In such a system 
it is almost impossible to prevent the departure from 
old and the introduction of new doctrines; and, accord- 
ingly, both in Old and New England, many of the Inde- 



RESOUBOES OF THE UNITED STATES. 413 

pendent Churches have passed gradually from Calvin- 
ism, through the intermediate stages of Arminianism, 
Arianism, and Semi-Arianism, into Socinianism, or Uni- 
tarianism, or, as Priestley calls it, Humanitarianism, be- 
cause it denies the divinity of Jesus Christ, and considers 
him merely " as a frail, peccable, erring man." 

The great body of the Congregationalists are to be 
found in New-England ; and some of their churches are 
scattered through the middle and southern states; 
which are, however, chiefly occupied by the Presbyte- 
rians. Episcopacy prevails most in New- York, Penn- 
sylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and South-Carolina, and 
is supposed to be gaining ground in some parts of New- 
England. The Friends, or Quakers, are most nume- 
rous in the middle States ; they are here, as in Europe, 
and every where else, peculiarly active in all works of 
benevolence. For example, in promoting peace, dis- 
couraging war, aiding the progress of Bible Societies, 
and Sunday Schools, and the abolition of slavery. The 
Methodists occupy chiefly the interior of the southern 
States, although they have churches scattered over the 
greatest part of the union. The Baptists abound most 
in the western States. The Papists are most numerous 
in Maryland, and in the large cities on our sea-board ; 
their numbers are continually augmented by European 
importation; but they seldom make proselytes from 
other sects. The Dutch Reformed Church is princi- 
pally confined to New- York and New-Jersey. Jews 
are scattered, in small numbers, all over the union, ex- 
cepting New-England, where a veritable Israelite is no 
more able to live than in Scotland. 

The American clergy of all denominations are, in ge- 
neral, decorous in their exterior, and faithful in the dis- 
charge of their pulpit and parochial duties. There is, 
however, in some of our cities, a custom, which dimi- 
nishes their usefulness; namely, the collegiate system, 
which makes three or foyr churches common to as'many, 
or more clergyman. In New-York, the Presbyterians 
have wisely abandoned this scheme ; the Episcopalians 
and Dutch still retain it. Instead of giving one regular 



414 RESOURCES OP THE l':srTED STATE? 

pastor to each separate congregation, the essence of the 
collegiate system is, not to suflbr the same clergyman to 
preach twice successively in the same church ; whence, 
there can be no regular exposition of the Scriptures, 
without which no congregation can be built up in Chris- 
tian instruction ; mere single, unconnected sermons, or 
sabbatical essays, never did, and never will, teach a peo- 
ple the scheme of Revelation. The collegiate system 
also, does not admit of pastoral duty and parochial visi- 
tation, without which the real religion of a church can 
never be kept up or established. A minister of mode- 
rate talents and learning, if he be the stated pastor of a 
single church, will be able to do much more good by 
regular preaching and exposition of the Scriptures, and 
parochial visitation, than a man of tlie first-rate capacity 
can possibly effect, by occasional preaching in a church, 
in common with talents and learning of every various 
gradation. No order of ability and information can 
compensate for a radical deficiency of system. 

Notwithstanding so large a portion of our population 
is altogether without religious ordinances, yet, of late, 
religion has been, unquestionably, gaining ground in the 
United States ; and that cold-blooded compound of irre- 
ligion, irony, selfishness, and sarcasm, which the French 
call persiflage.) is not so rife now as formerly. Religion 
is becoming fashionable among us, which is a strong 
proof of the existence of a great mass of real piety in 
the country. Some of our soi-iJisant philosophers, hoAV- 
ever, profess to ridicule this fashion, and to deride the 
cant and htjpocrisy of the present day, which they liken 
to the fanaticism of the puritans, who converted the 
Enojlish monarchy into a protectorate. 

But the extent of hypocrisy must always be regula- 
ted by that of true religion. If religion be not gene- 
rally spread over the community, there can be no ef- 
/uctual demand for extensive hypocrisy ; which, in it- 
self, is never any thing more than the homage of vice 
to virtue. If the great body of the people do not highly 
value religion, it can never be worth the while of lead- 
ing statesmen to play the hypocrite, and affect to be 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 415 

pious, in order to become acceptable in the eyes of the 
nation. If the pohticians of revolutionary France, and 
of our southern and western States, do not find it neces- 
sary to conceal their disregard for all seriousness and 
religion, but can afford to avow their impious tenets of 
speculative and practical infideHty, it only proves, that 
there is too little religion in their respective communi- 
ties, to compel them to wear the mask of hypocrisy, and 
assume the semblance of that piety which is generally 
diffused. It only proves, that the hosts of intidels are 
710W become more numerous and more daring in Chris- 
tendom, than they were in some former ages. In Britain, 
religion is so prevalent among all sects and denomina- 
tions, that her leading politicians dare tiot, whatever 
may be their private opinions, openly avow themselves 
to be infidels, Avhether Deists or Atheists. 

The rapid spread of Sunday Schools, and of Mission- 
ary and Bible Societies, affords a most consolatory proof 
of the increase of religion in the United States. Two 
years have not yet elapsed, since their first institution 
in this country, and they have already considerably 
diminished the ignorance, poverty, and vice of our larger 
cities. Many of our most respectable famihes, both 
ladies and gentlemen, gratuitously engage in the labour 
of teaching the Sunday scholars, black and white, old 
and young. Tlieir exertions have caused the Sabbath 
to be respected by the poor, the idle, and the profli- 
gate ; and have quickened tlie growth of piety, order, 
industry, and cleanliness amidst the habitations of filth, 
indolence, confusion, and iniquity. The reports of the 
various Sunday School Societies are peculiarly interest- 
ing, for their mass of important facts, their strain of 
manly religion and benevolence, the ability and elo- 
quence of their composition. 

The Missionary Societies are established for the pur- 
pose of converting those Indians who are not yet ex- 
terminated by the sword of American encroachment; 
and also to supply with rehgious instruction the millions 
of our own people, who are altogether destitute of reli- 
gious ordinances. The labours of these societies have 



416 RESOURCES OF TiiE UNITED STATES. 

been singularly beneficial, and are daily and hourly 
augmenting in usefulness. 

Both the Sunday Schools and Missions unite their 
excellent efforts to aid the progress of Bible Societies, 
which, perhaps, constitute tlie most important and most 
comprehensively useful institution that has ever blessed 
the human race, since the day-star of the Reformation 
first dawned upon a benighted world. The most efiec- 
tual means probably, that, under the blessing of Divine 
Providence, can be devised to oppose an effectual obsta- 
cle to the general progress of unbelief and immorality, 
are to be found in the extensive and judicious distribu- 
tion of the sacred Scriptures. The study of the Bible 
facilitates access to the fountain of life ; prepares the 
way for the instructions of the living teacher; opens the 
widest road to all moral and intellectual improvement; 
exalts the whole nature of man to a higher eminence in 
the scale of rational and spiritual being. If you wish to 
know what is in man ; what his nature, and what his 
conduct, under every form of society, political as well as 
religious; what his character in every individual condi- 
tion, savage or civilized, give your days and nights to 
the study of the Scriptures. They were dictated by 
the Holy Spirit of that Almighty God who created man, 
and who, therefore, is most intimately acquainted with 
the nature of his creature. That nature is most clearly 
depicted throughout all the pages of the inspired vo- 
lume ; which, indeed, affords the largest range of con- 
templation to those enlightened and sagacious minds 
that are earnestly bent upon directing successfully their 
inquiries into the inmost recesses of the human heart ; 
because it is upon his own entire knowledge of the na- 
ture and character of man, that the Divine Saviour of 
the world has so strikingly acconimodated his scheme 
of religion to the wants and relief of that being for 
whose means of eternal salvation Christianity was pro- 
mulgated. 

What has been already cfllected by the efforts of the 
Bible SocietieSy scattered over so large a portion of Chris- 
tendom, in removing the darkness of the understanding. 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATED, 4jy 

and purifying the corruptions of the heart, (or, at least, 
in rendering the exterior morals more decorous, for the 
heart of man can only be cleansed from its unrighteous- 
ness by the inspiration of the Spirit of God,) is a suffi- 
cient pledge to encourage the unremitted exertions of 
every real (Christian, of whatever name, sect, or persua- 
sion, to persevere in this labour of love. Fourteen years 
have not yet elapsed, since the first establishment of the 
British and Foreign Bible Society ; and in this little pe- 
riod the sacred Scriptures have been spread over all the 
home dominions of Great Britain ; have been translated 
in whole or in part, into more than a hundred different 
languages, and dispersed over almost all the habitable 
globe ; over the whole of continental Europe, a part of 
Africa, a considerable portion of Asia ; nay, have even 
penetrated the habitations of the aboriginal barbarians 
of our American wilderness. 

The Reverend Mr. Owen's History of the British and 
Foreign Bible Society is one of the most able, eloquent, 
instructive, and interesting books which has ever pro- 
ceeded from the pen of man. 

Since the establishment of this primary institution, 
Bible Societies have sprung up in unnumbered multi- 
tudes, partly branching off from the parent trunk, partly 
self-created and independent, but all in Christian har- 
mony and accord with each other, Avheresoever scatter- 
ed over the distant regions of the earth. In Britain the 
affihated societies are augmented beyond all power of 
count, and furnish a continual supply of the word of life 
to those vast masses of the poor and destitute, which are 
always to be found in old and fully peopled countries. 
On continental Europe these blessed institutions, in some 
measure, allayed even the horrors of universal warfare ; 
and where the ravages of earthly desolation continued 
to spread themselves, the revealed word of God taught 
the sufferers to lift their hearts above this perishing 
scene of things, and direct their views towards those 
mansions of eternal joy, " where the Avicked cease from 
troubling, and the weary are at rest." hi Russia more 
especially, and to an immense extent ; in Sweden, Den- 

53 



418 RESOURCES OF THE liNlTJuD STATE:?. 

mark, Saxony, Bohemia, Hungary, the United Nether- 
lands, Prussia, Switzerland, and many other parts of the 
European continent, Bible Societies, aided by the muni- 
ficent donations of the British and Foreign Institution, 
are perpetually diffusing the word of God. May Di- 
vine Providence enable these societies to stem the tor- 
rent of general infidelity, which has been infecting the 
nations of continental Europe with the taint of death, 
during the lapse of an entire century ! 

Nor have these United States, in proportion to their 
population and means, fallen short of their Christian 
brethren in Europe in well-directed efforts to dissemi- 
nate the sacred Scriptures. In almost every State of 
the Union, north, east, west, and south, and in many 
separate districts of some of the States, have Bible So- 
cieties started up, under the auspices of zeal and wis- 
dom. The American Bible Society^ a national institu- 
tion, established so recently as in May, 1816, has alrea- 
dy about a hundred and fifty auxiliary branches ; be- 
sides which there are some few independent Bible 
Associations, and a considerable number of Bible and 
Common Prayer-book societies. The old and young, 
the rich and poor, of every Christian denomination, have 
sprung forward with alacrity and ardour to enrol them- 
selves under the banners of the Cross ; to do personal 
suit and service to the great Captain of their salvation, 
by distributing His glad tidings of present peace, and 
future hope, and eternal safety, among all those who 
have hitherto lived without God in the world. 

Neither can it be said, that America does not stand 
in need of every individual, every social effort, to distri- 
bute the sacred oracles among her children. The sa- 
vage tribes of Indians, who prowl around our frontiers, 
or who roam over the pathless wilderness, remain still 
benighted in all the original darkness of pagan ignorance 
and superstition. Nay, even our own fellow-citizens in 
the United States, require all the assistance that can be 
given to facilitate their access to the means of eternal 
fife. Full three millions of our people are altogether 
destitute of Christian ordinancesj and as the population 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 4J9 

of this country increases with a rapidity hitherto unex- 
ampled in the history of nations, unless some effectual 
means be adopted to spread the light of the gospel over 
those sections of the Union, which now lie prostrate in 
all the darkness of unregenerated depravity, before 
half a century shall have elapsed, our federative republic 
will number within its bosom more than twenty millions 
o( imbapHzed infidels. 

The voice of duty, therefore, and of humanity, and 
Christian charity, calls loudly upon us to strain every 
sinew, to stretch every nerve, in strenuous and unremit- 
ted exertion, to circulate the Holy Scriptures among all 
the orders and classes of our community. This soul- 
ennobling duty is the more incumbent upon Bible Soci- 
eties, because it is their peculiar privilege to be a Chris- 
tian Society, instituted for truly Christian purposes; 
with them^ engaged as. they are in one common labour 
of philanthropy, every partition wall of sectarian bigotry 
is broken down ; every denomination of all Christian 
persuasions, is met together with one heart, and with 
one accord. They leave to graceless zealots, the mise- 
rable consolation of worrying each other, and disgracing 
themselves by the fiercest contentions about the paltry 
shibboleths of puny polemics ; their sole object is to 
give a free course, a wider circulation to the unsophisti- 
cated word of God ; and I trust, that they will never 
for one moment, slacken their exertions of time, talent, 
knowledge, substance, opportunity, body, soul, and spirit, 
their universal nature, in this great, this interesting ser- 
vice, while a single section of our country; a single 
town, village, or hamlet; nay, a single family, or indivi- 
dual, within the wliole circumference of our vast, and 
rapidly widening republic, is to be found, to whom the 
sacred Scriptures are as a fountain closed, and a volume 
sealed. 

The morals, maimers, and character, of every country, 
are based upon its religious and social institutions, which 
in the United States are framed in the fulness of indivi- 
dual liberty; leaving every one to think, speak, and act, 
according to his own inclination and views ; provided, 



420 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

howe^er, that he keeps, (as Shakspeare calls it,) on the 
windy side of the law. 

The great bodj of the American people are of Eng- 
hsh origin, and resemble their parent country in morals, 
manners, and character, modified indeed, by the diversi- 
ties of government, soil, climate, and condition of society. 
Being, however, all under the influences of the same lan- 
guage, religion, laws, and policy, the several States 
which compose the Union present substantially the same 
character, with only a few shades of local variety. All 
our governments are elective and popular, the plenary 
sovereignty residing in the people, who therefore feel a 
sense of personal importance and elevation, unknown to 
the mass of population in any other country. To which 
add their general intelligence, abundance, enterprise, 
and spirit, and we see a people superior to those of every 
other nation, in physical, intellectual, and moral capacity 
and power. 

In Mew-England^ property is more equally divided, 
than in any other civilized country. There are but few 
overgrown capitalists, and still fewer plunged into the 
depths of indigence. Those States are alike free from 
the insolence of wealth, on one hand, and the servility 
of pauperism on the other. They exhibit a more per- 
fect equality in means, morals, manners, and character, 
than has ever elsewhere been found. With the excep- 
tion of Rhode-Island, they all support religion by law; 
iheir numerous parish priests, all chosen by the people 
themselves, moderately paid, and in general, well 
informed and pious, are continually employed on the 
sabbaths, and during the week days, in the instruction 
and amendment of their respective congregations ; their 
elementary schools are established in every township, 
and perhaps not a native of New-England is to be found, 
who cannot read, and write, and cast accounts. They 
live universally in villages, or moderately sized towns ; 
and carry on their commercial, manufacturing, and 
agricultural operations, by the voluntary labour of 
freemen, and not by the compelled toil of slaves. In 
sobriety of morals and manners, in intelligence, spirit, 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 421 

anci enterprise, the New-England men and the Scottish, 
are very much ahke. Dr. Currle, in his profound and 
elegant biography of Burns, enters at length into the 
causes whicn have rendered the great body of the Scot- 
tish people so very superior to those of any other Euro- 
pean country ; the result of his reasoning is, that this 
national superiority is owing to the combined efforts of 
the system of parish schools, giving to all the means of 
elementary education, and of a moderately paid, able, 
and well-informed clergy, coming into constant contact 
with, and instructing and regulating the people ; to 
which he adds, as no small auxiliary, the absence of those 
poor laws which have impoverished, and deteriorated, 
and corrupted the whole people of England. 

In this country we have unfortunately adopted the 
English poor-law system ; which, so far as it yet ope- 
rates, is a cankerworm, gnawing at the heart's core of 
our national morals, prosperity, and strength. The 
American people, however, possess one decided advan- 
tage over those of Scotland, and every other country ; 
namely, that of the political sovereignty residing in them ; 
whence they exhibit, in their own persons, a moral fear- 
lessness, confidence, and elevation, unknown and unlma- 
gined elsewhere. A native free-born American knows 
no superior on earth : from the cradle to the grave he 
is tausrht to believe that his magistrates are his servants ; 
and while, in all other countries, the people are continu- 
ally flattering and praising their governors, our govern- 
ment is compelled to be eternally playing the sycophant, 
and acting the parasite, to the majesty of the people. 
It may, on the whole, be safely asserted that tiie New- 
England population surpasses that of all the rest of the 
world in steady habits, dauntless courage, intelligence, 
enterprise, perseveranee — in all the quah'ties necessary 
to render a nation first in war and first in peace. Upon 
inquiry, I was Informed by one of our southern generals, 
who particularly distinguished himself on our northeni 
frontiers during the last war, that the New-England re- 
giment, in his brigade, was peculiarly conspicuous for 
its exact discipline, its patient endurance of fatigue and 



422 RESOURCES OF THE WVITED STATES. 

privation, its steady, unyielding valour in the field; while 
his own native Virginians were mora careless, more reck- 
less, more inflammatory, more fit for a forlorn hope, or 
some desperate, impracticable enterprise. He added, 
that he regularly found that all the rum dealt out as ra- 
tions to his New-England soldiers had glided down the 
throats of his Virginian regiment; whose pay, in retum, 
had been regularly transferred to the pockets of the 
more prudent eastern warriors. 

In the Middle States the population is not so national 
and unmixed as in New-England, Avhose inhabitants are 
altogether of English origin. They do not support re- 
ligion by law ; and a considerable portion of their peo- 
ple are destitute of clergymen, even in the State of New- 
York, and a still greater proportion in some of the other 
middle States. In some of them elementary schools are 
not numerous, particularly in Pennsylvania, many of 
whose people can neither write nor read. Property is 
not so equally divided, and the distinction of rich and 
poor is more broadly marked than in New-England. 
Many of their settlements are more recent, and exhibit 
the physical, intellectual, and moral disadvantages of 
new settlements, in the privations, ignorance, and irreli- 
gion of the settlers, vi^ho were composed of many differ- 
ent 'nations, having no one common object in view, cither 
in regard to religious, or moral, or social institutions. 
The English, Dutch, Germans, French, Irish, Scottish, 
Swiss, have not yet had time and opportunity to be all 
melted down into one homo£:eneous national mass of 
American character. The slaves in this section of the 
Union are more numerous than in New-England, and in 
Maryland sufficiently so, to influence and deteriorate 
the character of the people. The moral habits of the 
Middle States, generally, are more lax than those of 
New-England. New-York, indeed, partly from proxi- 
mity of situation, but chiefly from its continual acquisi- 
tion of emigrants from the Eastern States, is rapidly 
assuming a New-England character and aspect. 

In the Southern States religion receives no support 
from tlie law ; and a very large proportion of the inha- 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 423 

bitants are destitute of regular preaching and religious 
instruction. The elementary schools are few, and in 
general not well administered ; many of the white in- 
habitants cannot even read. Labour, on the seaboard, 
is performed chiefly by slaves ; and slavery here, as 
every where else, has corrupted the public morals. The 
mulattoes are increasing very rapidly ; and, perhaps, in 
the lapse of years, the black, white, and yellow popula- 
tion will be melted down into one common mass. Duel- 
ling and gaming are very prevalent; and, together with 
other vices, require the restraining power of religion 
and morality to check their progress towards national 
ruin. 

When speaking of the gradual relaxation of morals in 
the United States, as we pass from the north and east 
to the south and west, it is to be understood that the 
American ladies are not included in this geographical 
deterioration. In no country under the canopy of hea- 
ven do female virtue and purity hold a higher rank than 
in the Union. We have no instances among us of those 
domestic infidelities, which dishonour so many families 
in Europe, and even stain the national character of 
Britain herself, high as she peers over all the other 
European nations, in pure religion, and sound morality. 
Our American ladies make virtuous and affectionate 
wives, kind and indulgent mothers ; are, in general, 
easy, affable, intelligent, and well bred ; their manners 
presenting a happy medium between the too distant re- 
serve and coldness of the English, and the too obvious, 
too obtrusive behaviour of the French women. Their 
manners have a strong resemblance to those of the 
Irish and Scottish ladies. 

The public morals, however, of the free male popula- 
tion of our southern and western States, are materially 
injured by the existence of the slave system. Even Mr. 
Morris Birkbeck, whose ultra whiggism has led him, in 
his old age, to fly with horror from the despotism of 
Britain, because she overthrew his friend Napoleon, the 
great patron saint of liberty in Europe ; even he ex- 
presses grave doubts, if the condition of his enslaved 



424 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

countrymen be quite so bad as that of the negroes in 
Virginia; and he runs a philosophical parallel, very 
much after the manner of Plutarch, between tlie situ- 
ation of the English peasantry and that of tlie Virginian 
slaves, balancing their respective evils under various 
heads of inquiry; and, upon the whole, seems inclined 
to think, that the British people are not yet reduced so 
low in the scale of oppression and suffering as the black 
inhabitants of our " Ancient Dominion^ Indeed, the 
sensibilities of this veteran reformer were so much 
awakened, he says, as actually to cause him to shed 
tears, "when he saw some slaves sold in Richmond, the 
capital of Virginia; and he does not hesitate to affirm, 
that the superior morals of those States, Avhich have 
abolished slavery, proves servitude to be, in truth, the 
banc of society. 

Mr. Birkbeck says, that in May, 1817, he was at 
Petersburgh, on his way to Indiana, where he is now 
endeavouring to lay the foundations of a colony, to be 
peopled by English, who, like himself, are too virtuous 
and too wise to live under the British government, 
whose wickedness and tyranny are consummating its 
speedy perdition. He says he found a Virginian tavern 
like a French hotel, but more filthy, without its culinary 
excellence, and dearer than an English inn. The daily 
number of guests at its ordinary was fifty, consisting of 
travellers, shopkeepers, lawyers, and doctors. He 
found the Virginian planter a republican in politics, and 
full of high-spirited indepcdence, but a slave master, 
irascible, lax in morals, and wearing a dirk. He never 
saw in England an assemblage of countrymen, who 
averaged so well in dress and manners. Their conver- 
sation gave him a high opinion of their intelligence — 
the prevailing topic was negro slavery^ an evil which 
all professed to deplore, many were anxious to fly from, 
but for which none could devise a remedy. 

One gentleman, an invalid, was wretched at the 
thought of his family being left, for a single night, with- 
out his protection from his own slaves. He was him- 
self labouring under the eifects of a poisonous potion, 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 425 

administered to him by a negro, his own personal ser- 
vant, to whom he had been particularly kind and gene^- 
rous, and who thus recompensed his indulgence. It 
was stated, that severe and rigorous masters seldom 
suffer from the resentment of their slaves. On the 10th 
of May, 1817, Mr. Birkbeck saw two female slaves and 
their children sold by auction, in the street, at Rich- 
mond ; a spectacle which exceedingly shocked him; he 
could scarcely endure to see them handled and ex- 
amined like cattle, and when he heard their sobs, and 
saw the tears roll down their cheeks, at the thought 
of being separated, he could not refrain from weeping 
with them. Such is the consistency of an English 
patriot, who laments, that his own native country was 
not enslaved by that virtuous republican, Buonaparte ! 

In selling slaves, our southern planters and dealers 
pay no regard to parting nearest relations, to separating 
parents and children, or tearing asunder husbands and 
wives. Virginia prides itself on the comparative mild- 
ness with which its slaves are treated ; and yet, in the 
first volume of the American Museum there is a heart- 
rending account of a slave being, for some offence, put 
into an iron cage, suspended to the branches of a lofty 
tree, and left to perish by famine and thirst, unless the 
birds of prey, to admit which the bars of the cage stood 
at intervals sufficiently wide, could terminate his life 
sooner, by plunging their beaks and talons into his vi- 
tals. In the mean time the eagle, the vulture, and the 
raven feasted upon the quivering flesh of the living vic- 
tim, whose body they mangled at their own leisure ; 
and the high-spirited republicans of the ancient do- 
minion were gratified by knowing, that the air was 
tainted by the putrefaction, and loaded with the expiring 
cries and groans of an agonized fellow-man, doomed to 
die by protracted torture. 

Virginia supplies, annually, with slaves of her own 
growth, the States farther south, where the treatment 
ol the negroes is said to be much more severe and more 
destructive of life. There are regular dealers, who 
buy up slaves, and drive them in gangs, chained to- 

54 



42(5 RESOLRCES OF THE UiJlTED STATES. 

ffether, antl more than half naked, to a southern market. 
Pew weeks pass without some of these wretched crea- 
tures being marched through Richmond, on their south- 
ward course ; a few months since nearly two hundred 
were sold by auction in the street, and filled all the 
region round with their cries, and shrieks, and lamenta- 
tions. Mr. Birkbeck observes, that he found in Vir- 
ginia the condition of the negroes more miserable, and 
the tone of moral feeling in their owners much higher 
than he had anticipated ; that he is confirmed in his 
detestation of slavery, both in principle and practice, 
and that he esteems the general character of the Vir- 
ginians. 

The western States participate in the morals, man- 
ners, and character of those sections of the Union, by 
which they are peopled, namely, the southern and mid- 
dle, and above all, the New-England States. Mr. 
Birkbeck's account of the emigration westward, and of 
his own progress through the new settlements, is in- 
teresting and instructive ; from his narrative 1 shall bor- 
row such facts as may illustrate the present inquiry. 
Indeed, all America appears to be moving lo the west. 
The political consequences of this migration will soon 
be portentous. During the revolutionary war, and for 
some years after its termination, the influence of New- 
England predominated in our national councils, and 
Washington's administration established the prosperity 
and glory of the country on a solid basis. Afterward 
Virgmia contrived, by manae;ing the southern and mid- 
dle States, to render New-England nearly a political 
cypher in the Union. And now, the rapid growth of 
the western States, in population, wealth, and strength, 
threaten, ere long, to give them a preponderance over 
all the Atlantic sections of the United States; and to 
entail upon us a system of tramontane policy, but little 
accordant with our commercial views and interests. 
Tlie first step of decided western legislation, probably 
will be the removal of the scat of general government 
from Washington, across the Alleghany mountains, to 
some place nearer the Pacific Ocean. 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 427 

On" the great route towards the Ohio, the traveller 
has constantly in view groups of emigrants, directing 
their steps towards the land of promise ; some with a ' 
little, light wagon, covered with a sheet or blanket, 
and containing bedding, utensils, provisions, and a co- 
lony of children, drawn by one or two small horses, and 
perhaps accompanied by a cow. A few silver dollars 
also are carried for the purchase of public land, at two 
dollars an acre, one-fourth of the purchase money to be 
paid immediately, upon entering the claim at the land- 
office of the district where the purchase is located. 
The New-England pilgrims are said to be known by 
the light step and cheerful air of the women, marching 
in front of the family caravan ; the New-Jersey wan- 
derers, by being quietly housed under the tilt of the 
wagon ; while the Pennsylvanian emigrants creep, 
loitering behind, with melancholy gait, and slow. A 
cart with one horse, or a single horse and pack-saddle, 
transports a family from the eastern to the western sec- 
tion of the Union, a distance of between two and three 
thousand miles; and, not unfrequently, the adventurer 
carries all his fortunes on his staff, while his wife, bare- 
footed, follows, bearing on her shoulders the treasure of 
the cradle. 

The- Americans are, unquestionably the most loco- 
motive, migrating people in the world. Even, when 
doing well in the northern, or middle, or southern states, 
they will break up their establishment, and move west- 
ward, with an alacrity and vigor, that nothing but the 
necessity of adverse circumstances could induce in any 
other population. In the year 1817, nearly twenty 
thousand wagons, averaging a burden of forty hundred 
weight each, travelled between Baltimore and Philadel- 
phia, on one side, and Pittsburgh on the other side of the 
Alleghany mountains. The freight, or carriage of the 
goods thus conveyed, exceeded two millions of dollars. 
To which add numberless well loaded stages and mails, 
travellers in wagons, on horses, and on foot, and some 
notion may be formed of the incessant line of march oyer 
these three hundred miles of the western road. 



428 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Travellers from the eastern districts often leave their 
horses at Pittsburgh, and go down the Ohio to their 
place of destination ; while those from the west, pro- 
ceed eastward in stages. Even elderly women make 
long journeys on horseback, for instance, from Tennes- 
see to Pittsburg, a distance of twelve hundred miles; 
nay, sometimes, the lady will carry an infant on the 
horse, in addition to herself, a blanket above and be- 
neath the saddle, a pair of saddle-bags, a greatcoat, and 
an umbrella. Mr. JBirkbeck, in June, 1817, when at 
Washington, in Pennsylvania, saw a farmer and his wife, 
well mounted and equipt; they had ridden from the 
neighbourhood of Cincinnati, in Ohio, and were pro- 
ceeding on horseback, to visit their friends at New-York, 
and Philadelphia, a distance of seven hundred miles. 
They had left Cincinnati six days before, had travelled 
two hundred and seventy-two miles, and their horses 
were quite fresh; a conclusive proof of their excellence. 

Mr. Birkbeck gives the history of a farmer and ta- 
vern-keeper about twenty miles from Washington, as an 
example of the rapid appreciation of property in the 
western country. The man is thirty, has a wife and 
three fine children. His father is a farmer in the neigh- 
bourhood ; and gave him five hundred dollars to begin 
the world with, which he did by taking a cargo of flour 
to New-Orleans, distant about two thousand miles. In 
1815, he had increased his property to nine hundred 
dollars, and bought two hundred and fifty acres of land, 
sixty-five of which are cleared, and laid down to grass, 
for three thousand five hundred dollars of which three 
thousand are already paid. His property is now Avorth 
seven thousand dollars, having grown half that sum in 
value in two years, with a full prospect of a much greater 
appreciation in future. In many parts of Ohio, land is 
now worth from twenty to thirty dollars an acre ; an 
advance in value of a thousand per cent in the last ten 
years. 

Nevertheless, Mr. Birkbeck admits, that emigrants 
with small capitals, particularly if from Europe, are lia- 
jble to great inconveniences. For money, although abun- 



RESOURCES OF THE UMTED STATES. 429 

dantly competent to the purchase of land is soon con- 
sumed in the expenses of travelling, which are great. 
The settlers in tne new country are generally needy 
adventurers, and exposed to difficulties, which, in addi- 
tion to unhealthy situations, shorten life. The public 
land, intended for sale, is laid out in the government 
surveys, in quarter sections of 160 acres each, or one 
fourth of a square mile. The whole is set up at auction, 
and what remains unsold may be bought at the district 
land office, at two dollars an acre ; one fourth to be 
paid down, and the residue in instalments, to be com- 
pleted in five years. The emigrant having paid his 
eighty dollars for a quarter section, is often left penni- 
less, and repairs to his purchase in a wagon, containing 
his wife and children, a few blankets, a skillet, a rifle, 
and an axe. After erecting a little log hut, he clears, 
with intense labour a plot of ground for Indian corn, as 
his next year's subsistence; depending, in the mean- 
time, on his gun for food. In pursuit of game, he 
must often, after his day's work, wade through the 
evening dews up to the waist, in long grass or bushes, 
and returning, lie on a bear's skin, spread on the damp 
ground, exposed to every blast through the open sides, 
and to every shower through the open roof of his dwell- 
ing, which is never attempted to be closed until the ap- 
proach of winter, and often not then. Under such ex- 
treme toil and exposure, many of the settlers speedily 
perish. 

Sometimes he has to carry his grain fifty miles to a 
mill to be ground, and wait there some days, till his 
turn comes. These difficulties of course, diminish, as 
the settlements thicken ; and the number of emigrants 
increases each successive year, with incredible rapidity. 
Land cleared, commands from twenty to thirty dollars 
an acre; and thus, in the course of the last fifteen years, 
a tract of country four times as large as the British 
Isles, has been decupled in value. The towns in the 
western country, as is particularly the case with Zanes- 
ville, Lancaster, and Chilicothe, in Ohio, are often situa- 
ted without any regard to the health of the inhabitants, 



430 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

provided they be well located for profit ; gain being tlie 
chief object of pursuit with our American adventurers. 
Cincinnati itself, stands too low on the banks of the 
Ohio; its lower parts being within reach of the spring 
floods. But it has grown, as by enchantment, and pro- 
mises soon to become one of the first cities of the west. 
Within the little space of five years, the greatest part 
of its present dimensions and wealth has been produced. 

It exhibits now, where, within the memory of man, 
stood only one rude cabin, several hundreds of commo- 
dious, handsome brick houses, spacious and busy markets, 
substantial public buildings, thousands of industrious 
thriving inhabitants, gay carriages, and elegant females, 
slioals of craft on the river, incessant enlarging and im- 
provement of the town, a perpetual influx of strangers 
and travellers ; all sprung up from the bosom of the 
woods, as it were but yesterday. Twenty years since, 
the immense region comprising the States of Ohio and 
Indiana, numbered only thirty thousand souls, loss tiian 
are now contained in the little county of Hamilton, in 
which Cincinnati stands. 

Probably the time is not far distant, when the chief 
intercourse with Europe, will no longer be through the 
Atlantic States, but be carried on through the great 
rivers, which communicate by the Mississippi, with the 
ocean, at New-Orleans ; in consequence of the ascend- 
ing navigation of these streams being subdued by the 
power of steam. 

Full two thousand boatmen are regularly employed 
on the Ohio; and are proverbially ferocious and profli- 
gate. The settlers along the line of this great naviga- 
tion, exhibit similar habits ; and profligacy and fierceness 
appear to characterize the population on the banks of 
these mighty rivers. Indiana is more recently settled 
than Ohio, and its settlers superior in rank and charac- 
ter; the first founders of Ohio being very needy adven- 
turers. The inhabitants of Indiana have generally 
brought with them from their parent States, habits of 
comfort, and the means of procuring the conveniences 
of life. They are orderly, peaceable citizens, resj)ect 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. ^3j 

and obey the laws, are kind and neighbourly to each 
other, and hospitable to strangers. The mere hunters 
who rely for subsistence on their rifle, and a scanty cul- 
tivation of corn, and Hve in a state of poverty and pri- 
vation nearly equal to that of the Indians, always retire 
at the approach of the regular settlers, and keep them- 
selves on the outside of the cultivated farms. 

Ther- is no striking difference in the general deport- 
ment and appearance, of the great body of Americans 
in the towns^ from Norfolk in Virginia, to Madison in In- 
diana. The same well-looking, well-dressed, tall, stout 
men, appear every where, pretty much at their ease, 
shrewd and intelligent, and not too industrious. When 
asked why they do not employ themselves ? they answer, 
" we live in freedom, we need not work like the Eng- 
lish ;" as if idleness itself, were not the worst species 
of slavery. In the country are to be found several back- 
woodmen, who are savage and fierce, and view new- 
comers as intruders. They, however, must quickly yield 
to the rapid growth of civilization. The great body of 
the western settlers, are beyond all comparison, superior 
to the European farmers and peasantry, in manners and 
habits, in physical capacity, and abundance, and above 
all, in intelligence, and political independence. 

The activity and enterprise of the Americans, far ex- 
ceed those of any other people. Travellers continually 
are setting out on journeys of two or three thousand . 
miles, by boats, on horses, or on foot, without any appa- 
rent anxiety or deliberation. Nearly a thousand persons 
every summer, pass down the Ohio, as traders or boat- 
men, and return on foot ; a distance by water, of seven- 
teen hundred, by land, of a thousand miles. 

Many go down to New-Orleans from Pittsburgh, an 
additional five hundred miles, by water, and three 
hundred by land. The store or shop keepers of the 
western towns resort to Baltimore, New-York, and 
Philadelphia, once a year, to lay in their goods. But 
in a short time, probably, these journeyings eastward 
will be exchanged for visits down the dhio and Missis- 
sippi to New-Orleans. The vast and growing produce 



43jJ ntsouRCEs of the united states. 

of the western States, in grain, flour, cotton, sugar, to- 
bacco, peltry, lumber, &ic. which finds a ready market 
at New-Orleans, will, by means of steamboat navigation, 
be returned through the same channel in the manufac- 
tures and luxuries of Europe and Asia, to supply the 
constantly-increasing demands of the west, and render 
New-Orleans one of the greatest commercial cities in 
the universe. 

Learning, taste, and science, of course, have not yet 
made much headway in the west ; their reading is, in 
general, confined to newspapers and pofitical pamphlets, 
a little histor}^, and less religion ; but their intellects are 
keen, vigorous, and active. The following observations 
of Mr. Walsh, in the first volume of the American Re- 
gister, are expressed in his usual style of felicitous splen- 
dour: — "In inspecting the schools of our Western 
Country we are alarmed lest the population should 
immeasurably outgrow the means of instruction, and their 
intellectual fall far short of their numerical weight in 
our national councils. But the apprehension vanishes, 
in a great degree, before the activity, the emulation, and 
the sagacity which characterize our tramontane bre- 
thren. The force with which the mind vegetates among 
them can be best illustrated by the growth of their 
plants in a virgin loam. All the faculties knit, spread, 
and luxuriate, vigorously and wildly, as the branches 
of their sycamore. This intense vitality of the intellect, 
when fed by science, and the knowledge of mankind, 
must give the most splendid results. We may judge 
from the specimens of the ore which we have seen in 
Congress what the metal will be after sublimation. I 
must confess that I was lost in admiration at the pros- 
pects which open in that quarter upon the pride of hu- 
man intelligence and power; it is a perspective of vvhich 
the magnificence can be credible only to those who 
have made their examination at leisure upon the spot, 
and with a recollection of what history relates as to the 
adolescence of the miirhtiest communities mentioned in 
its annals. At a distance hardly a suspicion is entertain- 
ed of the promise — 1 should say, rather, the impending 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 433 

maturity of the west. It is a great empire, lying, as it 
were, in ambush for mankind, and destined to explore 
all parts of the intellectual world. Liberal education, 
by which I mean the systematic tuition of the sciences 
and classics, is there exceedingly backward; but the 
rudiments of mere Enghsh education are almost uni' 
versal." 

Having thus, very summarily, glanced at the morals, 
habits, and manners, of the four great sections of the 
Union, a {ew remarks will be hazarded as apphcable to 
the Americans, generally, in their national capacity and 
character. 

The high wages of labour, the abundance of every 
kind of manual and mechanical employment, the plenty 
of provisions, the vast quantity and low price of land, 
all contribute to produce a healthy, strong, and vigorous 
population. Four-fifths of our people are engaged m 
agricultural pursuits, and the great majority of these are 
proprietors of the soil which they cultivate. In the in- 
tervals of toil their amusements consist chiefly of hunting 
and shooting, in the woods, oron the mountains; whence 
they acquire prodigious muscular activity and strength. 
We have no game laws, such as exist in Europe, to pro- 
hibit the possession and use of firearms to the great 
body of the people. Our boys carry a gun almost as 
soon as they can walk ; and the habitual practice of 
shooting at a target, with tiie rifle, renders tlie Ameri- 
cans the most unerring marksmen, and the most deadly 
musketry in the world ; as was singularly evidenced at 
Bunker^s Hill^'m the commencement of the revolutionary 
conflict, and at New-Orleans, at the close of the last 
war. Every male, from the age of eighteen to forty- 
five, is liable to be enrolled in the militia ; of which the 
President's Message of the 2d of December, 1817, in- 
forms us the United States have now eight hundred 
thousand. These men make the best materials for a 
regular army, as they learn the use of arms in platoons, 
and the elements of mihtary discipline, in their militia 
exercises and drills. The Americans are excellent en- 
gineers and artillerists, and serve their guns well, both 

r>5 



434 RESOURCES 01 THE LMTED Sl'ATE.s 

in the field and on the flood, as their enemies can testily ; — 
whereas, the people in Europe are not suffered to be 
familiar with the use of arms; whence neither their 
seamen nor their soldiers fire with any thing like the 
precision and execution of the American army and 
navy. 

Thus the people of the United States possess, in an 
eminent degree, the physical elements of national great- 
ness and strength. Add to these, the general preva- 
lence of elementary instruction, which enables the great 
mass of die people to develope their natural faculties 
and powers, and capacitates them for undertaking any" 
employment, success in which depends upon shrewd- 
ness, intelligence, and skill ; whence their singular inge- 
nuity in mechanical and manual operations, and their 
sound understanding, enterprise, and perseverance in 
the practical concerns of life. And to crown all, the 
political sovereignty of the nation residing in the people, 
gives them a personal confidence, self-possession, and 
elevation of character, unknown and unattainable in any 
other country, and under any other form of government; 
and which renders them quick to perceive, and prompt 
1o resent and punish any insult offered to individual or 
national lionour. Whence in the occupations of peace, 
and the achievements of war, the Americans average a 
greater aggregate of effective force, physical, intellec- 
tual, and moral, than ever has been exhibited by a given 
number of any other people, ancient or modern. Indi- 
viduals, in other countries, may, and do exhibit as much 
bodily activity and strength, as much intellectual acute- 
ness and vigour, as much moral force and elevation, as 
can be shown forth by any American individuals; but 
no country can display such a population, ?';« 7?iflf55, as are 
now quickening the United States with their prolific en- 
oigy, and ripening fast into a substance of power, every 
movement of which will soon be felt in its vibrations to 
the remotest corners of the earth. 

Sagacity and shrewdness are the peculiar character- 
istics of American intellect, and were in nothing more 
pre-eminent, than in the advice of President ^^ ashing- 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 435 

ton's secretary of the navy, that the United States should 
build their ships nominally of the same rate with those 
of Europe, but really of greater strength, of more speed, 
tonnage, and guns, than the corresponding classes oi 
European vessels, that they might ensure victory over 
an enemy of equal, or nearly equal force, and escape, 
by superior saihng, any very unequal conflict. This 
was good policy ; as it served materially to raise the 
naval character of the country, to lessen that of Eng- 
land, and to put out of use and service the European 
navies, and compel other nations to construct their ships 
anew, after the American model. This policy is still 
persisted in, and our seventy-fours are equal in tonnage, 
bulk, strength, guns, and crew, to any hundred gun 
ships in the British navy. The American crews also, 
are far superior to those of Europe ; every seaman is a 
good gunner, and the ships are manned with picked 
men, and a full complement of real, able-bodied, skilful 
sailors; whereas the European ships seldom have more 
than one-third of their crews able seamen, the other two- 
thirds generally consisting of landsmen and boys. When 
we shall have a navy, as large as we ought to have, in 
proportion to our long line of seacoast, our immense 
lake and river navigation, and our imaiense and rapidly- 
augmenting resources, it will not be easy to man our 
fleets and squadrons as we now do our few single ships; 
nay, it is doubtful, if they can be manned at all, without 
the aid of impressment^ which, indeed, was strongly re- 
commended to Congress by our secretary of the navy, 
towards the close of the last war, as the only possible 
mode of filling up the complement wanted for the two 
and twenty vessels, of all sizes, frigates, sloops, and 
brigs, which we then had in conwnission. 

There are, however, drawbacks upon the high ele- 
ments of national greatness above enumerated, to be 
found in some of our politic al and social institutions. 
For example, 5/at?cry demoralizes the southern, and those 
of the western States, which have adopted this execra- 
ble system. Lotteries pervade the middle, southern and 
western States, and spread a honibly-increasiug masF- 



.j[36 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

of idleness, fraud, theft, falsehood, and profligacy 
throughout all the classes of our labouring population. 
The crying iniquity and evil of this system are compel- 
ling the British parliament to abolish it altogether in 
that country. Our state legislatures never assemble 
without augmenting the number of lotteries. Our fa- 
vourite scheme of substituting a state prison for the gal- 
lows is a most prolific mother of crime. During the se- 
verity of the winter season, its lodgings and accommo- 
dations are better than those of many of our paupers, 
who are thereby incited to crime in order to mend 
their condition. And the pernicious custom of pardon- 
ing the most atrocious criminals, after a short residence 
in the state prison, is continually augmenting our flying 
squadrons of murderers, housebreakers, footpads, 
forgers, highway robbers, and swindlers of all sorts. 
The effect of Mr. Bentham's plan of a penitentiary, with 
its panorama, and whispering gallery, is not known, be- 
cause it has never been tried in this country ; but, be- 
yond all peradventure, our state prisons, as at present 
constituted, are grand demoralizers of our people. 

Our State insolvent laws, likewise, (for we are too 
patriotic to permit Congress to pass an uniform bankrupt 
law, that might compel our merchants to pay their 
foreign creditors,) acts as a perpetual bounty ibr disho- 
nesty and fraud. A few favoured creditors, by Avhosc 
false representations the debtor has obtained large cre- 
dits, are secured, and the rest of the creditors, more 
especially if they happen to be British, are sure to get 
nothing. The insolvent is discharged, as a matter of 
course, from all responsibility, and left at liberty to re- 
new his depredations upon the property of others ac- 
cording to his own inclination, experience, and dexterity. 

The poor-law system, as an awful encouragement to 
pauperism and profligacy, requires no further comment. 
With the exception o( forgery^ in the ingenuity and au- 
dacity of which our native Americans far surpass all 
other people, and for which our state-prisons do not af- 
ford even a palliative, much less a remedy, ihe foreigners 
and free blacks arc the most numerous and atrocious of 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 437 

our criminals. The '■'■loio Irish,''^ as they are called, 
who coQie out to us in shoals from their own country, 
and are by far the most noxious donation, which the 
United States receive from Britain, fill up our lowest 
departments of labour in the manufactories, or the ma- 
nual operations of our large cities, as hod-men, porters, 
and so forth, are in general, rude, intemperate, and 
abandoned. They tenant our bridewells and state pri- 
sons in great numbers The next in the scale of profli- 
gacy, as criminals, are the freed negroes ; then come 
foreigners, other than Irish; and lastly, our own native 
citizens, of which few find their way into confinement 
for crime, excepting, as before stated, for forgery ; of 
adepts in which the United States produce a greater 
number, in proportion to their population, than any 
country in Europe ; their numbers, however, might be 
materially diminished, if our legislators could be per- 
suaded to try the experiment of the gallows upon them. 
The prevailing vice throughout the Union, excepting 
New-England, is immoderate drinking; encouraged 
doubtless, by the relaxing heats of the climate, in the 
southern, middle, and western States, by the high wages 
of labour, and by the absence of all restriction, in the 
shape of excise, or internal duty. Not only our labour- 
ers generally, but too many of our farmers, merchants, 
and other classes of the community, are prone to a per- 
nicious indulgence in spirituous liquors. 

The alarming increase of pauperism, drunkenness, 
and general profligacy, in the city of New-York, has 
induced our most respectable citizens of all classes, to 
appoint a committee to examine into the causes, and de- 
vise the means of checkino; this o-reat national evil, which 
menaces the very existence ot our social fabric. This 
committee is now in session ; and every succeeding day 
presents them with an accumulating mass of facts, all 
conspiring to show forth the loathsome deformity of our 
city, with respect to its rapidly augmenting poverty and 
vice. In the year 1817, our Corporation expended one 
hundred and ticenty thousand dollars in the poor law sys- 



430 RESOURCES OK THE UNITED STATES. 

tern ; wliich sum is in addition to other public charities, 
as the hospital, asylum for orphans, widow's society, 
charity schools, &c. and in addition to the private cha- 
rities, which in this city are numerous and expensive. 
Indeed, the Americans, generally, are a charitable bene- 
volent people, both in private and in public. The city 
of New-York, has within a few days past, raised five 
thousand dollars for the sufferers by the late fire at St. 
John's, in Newfoundland. And Boston, with only one- 
third of the New-York population, subscribed ten thou- 
sand dollars for the same object. But Boston has 
always been peculiarly munificent; witness a few years 
since, when some of her principal citizens subscribed 
twelve thousand dollars for the support of the widow 
and children of the British Consul for that district, who 
had died in indigent circumstances. 

In consequence of the extreme suffering of the poor 
in the city of New- York, during the winter of 1810-17, 
in January, 1817, a large meeting of the citizens was 
convened for the purpose of devising some means of im- 
mediate relief for their brethren in affliction. Commit- 
tees were appointed, in each ward of the city, to raise 
money by subscription, and administer to the more 
pressing wants of tne dependent classes of the communi- 
ty. Six thousand dollars were instantly raised, and en- 
tirely consumed in the course of a few days ; so prodi- 
gious was the number of distressed applicants for food. 
fuel, and clothinfr- Indeed, the number of indicrent 
poor, destitute of all the first necessaries of hie, as 
covering, provisions, fuel, lodging, upon careful exami- 
nation, was found to far exceed that of any former pe- 
riod of distress. The several conmiittees faithfully dis- 
charged their important but painful duties ; they visited 
the habitation o{ even/ faaiily that applied for relief. It 
was ?iot possible for any city in Europe — for London, 
for Paris, for Dublin itself — even at that awful hour of 
universal distress and visitation, to exhibit a greater y^ro- 
jr>or//ow^// number of wretched objects, sunk to the lowest 
pitch of barren sorrow and destitution, than were ex- 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. ^gg 

posed to the astonished view of the various committees, 
in their rounds of inquiry through the city of New- 
York. 

F\i\\ fifteen thousand men, women and children, during 
that season, received aid from the hand of pubHc and 
private charity; that is to say, about one-seventh of the 
whole population of our city. It raised a cry of alarm 
and horror throughout all the corners of their extended 
empire, when, in the year 1816, it was discovered that 
one-ninth of the population of the British isles was re- 
duced to a state of pauperage and dependence on the 
bounty of others. Ought such to be the condition of 
the mass of the people in any part of the United States ; 
where a comparatively small population is spread over 
an immense territory, blessed with a fertile soil and 
genial clime; where the burden of government expendi- 
ture is scarcely felt ; where the national debt is trifling, 
and the taxes nothing ; where there are no tithes ; and 
where the demand for agricultural labour is constantly 
outrunning its supply ? 

It is a lamentable and alarming fact, that the number 
of destitute poor in the city of New-York has averaged 
an annual augmentation far exceeding the rate of its 
actual increase of population for several years past; 
more especially since the winter Avhen the battery, at 
the confluence of the North and East rivers, was broken 
up, and distributed for firewood amongst the indigent, 
and the Corporation proclaimed that it would give food 
and fuel, at the Almshouse, to all distressed applicants. 
This is the very essence of the impracticable folly, and 
positive evil of the poor-laiu system, which promises 
work and support to all that want ; as if it were possi- 
ble for any human scheme to create either food or em- 
ployment where neither is to be found in existence ! 

It is not, however, to be dissembled, that a large pro- 
portion of our New-York paupers vire foreigners, chiefly 
from Europe, and some from the neighbouring States 
and towns. Nor can it be concealed, that the leprosy 
of wickedness and crime has tainted the lower class of 
our citizens in a most awful degree; as was to be ex- 



440 RESOURCES OV lllE IMTED STATES. 

pected, in consequence of their progressively increasing 
pauperism. It wiJl scarcely be credited in Europe, that 
a large proportion of these profligate paupers are free 
and independent voters at our elections, for charter- 
officers, for State Representatives, and for Congress- 
men ! 

The several committees laboured to investigate the 
causes which have produced the present wretched and 
degraded condition of the poor in our city. Some of 
the distress, undoubtedly, is to be attributed to the vast 
influx of indigent, and not immaculate, foreigners ; to the 
present depressed condition of commerce and manufac- 
tures ; to the prodigious number of benevolent societies 
which have, with the best and most charitable inten- 
tions, undesignedly offered a standing bounty for the 
continual increase of needy applicants ; and to some 
other causes, not proper, perhaps, now to be enumera- 
ted, but which our legislators and city magistrates can 
easily remove if they will ; and, perhaps, to the natural 
tendency of human society to deteriorate, if not con- 
stantly watched and guarded by religious and moral 
culture. A greater portion of the distress, probably, is 
occasioned by our system of poor-laws^ which we have 
borrowed from England. The British Review for No- 
vember, 1817, contains an elaborate, masterly, and tem- 
perate exposition of the evils which that system has 
burned, in characters of the nether fire, into the heart 
and vitals, the body, soul, and spirit of the English po- 
pulation. 

Btit beyond all controversy, the most fertile source ot" 
the present unparalleled distress among the poor of the 
city of New- York, is the general, not to say universal, 
use o{ spirituous liquors by the lower orders of the com- 
munity, of each sex and every age. There are nearly 
three thousand houses licensed to si^ll poison to the poor, 
in the shape of alcohol ; in addition to which there are 
great numocrs of cellars and vaults, where ardent spirits 
are vended without license. And do we wonder at the 
rapid augmentation of mendicity and crime in this city, 
when there are "^o manv charnnl houses of industrv. 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 44 J 

health, reh'gion, and morals opeia day and night, and 
every hour, for the consignment of their victims to an 
untimely grave ? 

By information from the Mayor of Philadelphia, com- 
municated to a committee of our Humane Society^ in 
December, 1809, it appears, that there were then in the 
city of Philadelphia only one hundred and ninety licensed 
houses; and in ihe whole county of Philadelphia, in- 
cluding the suburbs of the city, several considerable 
towns and villages, and a large tract of country, con- 
taining altogether a population of more than one hun- 
dred and fifty thousand souls, only two hundred and forty 
houses licensed to sell spirits. Since that period up to 
the present hour, the magistracy of Philadelphia have 
been most laudably employed in diminishing even that 
comparatively moderate number, which comprehends 
all the taverns, beer-houses, groceries, and other places^ 
licensed to sell spirituous liquors by retail. So that our 
sister city of Philadelphia permits less than one-tenth of 
inflammable poison, in proportion to her population, to 
be distributed among her citizens, in comparison of the 
heedless prodigality with which the official guardians of 
New- York waste the health and integrity of the poor 
committed to their charge. 

Nay, even in London, that mart of all the world, it 
appears from a recent report on the mendicity of the 
British empire to the House of Commons, that there 
are no more than four thousand two hundred and twenty 
houses licensed to sell spirits ; and that number is com- 
plained of as being too great for a city and its neighbour- 
hood, containing about one miHion, three hundred thou- 
sand inhabitants, and continually receiving into its capa- 
cious bosom a prodigious influx of profligacy and crime, 
from ever}^ tongue, and every nation, and every quarter 
of the globe. The population of New- York is not much 
more than one hundred thousand ; and therefore it is 
necessary for her, young as she is in hernational career, 
and simple as she is in all her forms and habits of social 
institution, to reduce tho licensed honses io at least 



412 



KE50URGES OF TIIE UNITED STATE1«. 



three hmulrcd, In order to reach the level, i?i incentives 
to illiquid/-, of an overgrown metropolis, hoary witli age, 
and presenting the most artificial and complicated slate 
of society ever yet exhibited in the history of the human 
race. 

On a very moderate computation, the licensed houses 
in New-York soil a yearly aggregate of spirits, amount- 
ing to three millions of dollars. One-tenth of the popu- 
lation of the whole State resides in this city, and, allow- 
ing that ihey^ owing to the greater tendencies of a 
crowded city to idleness and profligacy, consume as 
much as all the other nine-tenths, the annual expendi- 
ture of our State in spirituous liquors will amount to six 
millions of dollars. Now it is an enormous evil, that so 
large a portion of our annual income should be diverted 
from the service of productive industry; from adminis- 
tering to the agriculture, commerce, manufactures, con- 
veniences, comforts, and embellishment of the State. 
The sum so expended is about equal to a capitation 
tax of six dollars upon every man, woman, and child 
throughout the State. But the mere detraction of so 
much money annually from the public service, from pri- 
vate comfort, from social ornament, is, by no means, the 
greatest evil resulting from such an application of the 
funds of labour. The habitual use of ardent spirits 
enervates the bodily frame, renders it irritable, and 
liable to disease, lays the sure foundation of constitu- 
tional decay, and premature death ; it dissipates all the 
powers of the mind in shapeless idleness, quenches the 
fires of genius, and puts out the lights of learning; it 
corrupts and debases the whole moral nature of man; 
sears up his conscience against every obligation of duty, 
stifles tne voice of afiectjon, extinguishes in his bosom 
all the charities of parent, child, and brother; eradicates 
every principle and every sentiment of religion ; and 
renders him an incarnate fiend, ripe for the perpetra- 
tion of every enormity that can carry anguish and ruin 
into the recesses of private life, and convert society 
itself into a scene of rapine, and violence, of fraud, in- 
justice, anarchy, and blood. 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 443 

This evil is too great, too deeply rooted in the habits 
and passions of our people, for individual charity, how- 
ever active and persevering, to remove, or even sensibly 
to diminish. It is to the legislature of the State that we 
must look for a remedy to an evil, which is eating, like 
a cankerworm into the heart of the community ; and 
rendering that structure of human society, which is so 
fair and o-listenina: in its exterior form, full of dead mens' 
bones and all uncleanness within. What should forbid 
our legislature ? — nay, but is it not their imperious duty, 
instantly, without the delay of a moment, as they regard 
the welfare, temporal and eternal, of the people com- 
mitted to their trust, by the Governor among the nations^ 
to put a stop to this great and growing evil, by the 
wise and wholesome restraint of efficient laws ? Can it 
be deemed a sufficient objection to the diminution of 
these receptacles of vice and misery, that such a mea- 
sure will lessen the state revenue? Are the guardians 
of the commonwealth, who are appointed to their high 
office for the express purpose of promoting the well- 
being of the people, to put into one scale a little paltry 
tax, and into the other the health, the industry, the mo- 
rals, the prosperity, the happiness, of the great mass oi 
the community, and make their miserable pepper-corn 
of revenue weigh the heaviest ? But for a moment, put- 
ting aside all reference to morality and religion, which 
however ought always to be the most powerful and con- 
clusive arguments to the magistrates of a Christian coun- 
try, the state revenue itself may be infinitely augmented 
by the increase of industry, social order, public and pri- 
vate wealth, which would instantly spring up from 
amidst the ruins of the present demoralizing system. 
Since writing the above, the A'^ew-York Committee have 
published a Report, in which, Avith great wisdom and 
judgment they state the evils, and point to the remedies 
of pauperism. 

With regard to the manners of tlie United States, 
M. Volney, in the preface to his view of this coun- 
try, says, '• that he would dissuade his countrymen 
from settling here, because, although many facilities and 
benefits attend the establishment of Ena'lish, Scots, Gev- 



444 



RESOURCES OF THE UMTLD STATES. 



mans and Hollanders, from the resemblance that prevails 
between thoir manners and habits, and those of America, 
yet there are disadvantages and obstacles from a contra- 
riety in these respects, attending natives of France. 
There is nothing in the social forms and habits of the 
two nations, that can make them coalesce. They tax 
us with levity, loquacity and folly, while we reproach 
them with coldness, reserve, and haughty taciturnity; 
■with despising those sedulous and engaging civilities, 
which we so liighly value, and the want of which is con- 
strued by us into proofs ol unpoliteness in the indivi- 
dual, or of barbarism in the whole society. This na- 
tional incivility appears to How from the mutual inde- 
pendence of each other, and the general equality, as to 
fortune and condition, in which individuals in America 
are, for the most part, placed." 

The truth however is, that the United States exhibit 
a medium of manners, between the rude vulgarity of the 
lower orders, and the artificial refinement of the higher 
classes in Europe. The great body of our people ex- 
hibit an erect manliness of behaviour, equally remote 
from the brutal ferocity of a revolutionary ruffian, and 
the elaborate politeness of a petit maitrc. The only ex- 
cessively polite people we have are the negroeSy who 
" Sir and Madam'''' each other everlastingly ; and know 
no other order among themselves than that of " gentle^ 
men and ladies.'''' Some of our young men who visit 
Europe, on their return, exhibit what they call fashion- 
able European manners, that is to say, a studied indif- 
ference to all persons and things, as if politeness could 
consist in the apparent absence of all sense and feeling. 
These travellers, however, are soon compelled, either 
to resume their native habits and maimers, or to revisit 
Europe, or to lounge away their lives in solitary idle- 
ness. For our people are almost universally employed 
in some calling; the southern planters are lawyers and 
politicians, the northern, middle, and western States, 
are employed in every variety of pursuit. And it gene- 
rally happens that the sons of our opulent citizens be- 
come idle, good for nothing, and eventually paupers j 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 445 

wKlle needy adventurers, from the country, urged by 
the twofold stimulus of necessity and ambition, gradual- 
ly, win the heights of political, legal, and commercial 
eminence. 

Our wealthier classes, particularly in the large cities, 
exhibit as great an average of real politeness and good 
breeding, as the corresponding orders in Europe : for 
example, the middle class of Britain, whose intelligence, 
good manners and virtue, have always been reckoned 
the bulwark and ornament of the empire ; and which 
includes within its range the learned professions, the 
army and navy, the merchants, agriculturists, and men 
of letters. The incomes of our "decent livers," as they 
are called, reach from five hundred to ten thousand 
steeling a year; although very few individuals in the 
Union possess revenues so large as the latter sum indi- 
cates. Our American ladies are, in their persons love- 
ly, in their manners easy and 2;raceful, in conversation 
lively and sensible, in their various relations of wives, 
daughters, and mothers, exemplary and excellent. The 
aspect of society in the United States is somewhat 
clouded by the marvellous facility with which foreigners^ 
of every sort, species, and complexion, gain access to 
our most respectable circles. A pattern-card, a pair of 
saddle-bags, and a letter of credit, appear to be all the 
qualifications necessary to enable the agents of Euro- 
pean traders to mingle intimately with company in Ame- 
rica, far superior to any that they could ever command 
in their own country. 

Although the origin of the American people is not 
homogenous, yet the primary causes of their migration 
hither were similar ; and the liberal freedom of their 
social institutions, their general intelligence, and com- 
mon interests, have approximated their habits and man- 
ners so much, that, notwithstanding a comparatively 
small population is spread over an extensive territory, 
there are fewer provincial diversities of character and 
behaviour in the United States than in any other coun- 
try. Nine-tenths of our people speak the same lan- 
guage, without any variety of dialect ; which is, in itself, 



446 RESOLRCES OF THE UMTED STATES. 

a bond oi national unity, not to be found in any part of 
Europe; every different section of which, even in the 
same nation, speaks its own peculiar provincial palois. 
The laws, government, policy, interests, religion, and 
opinions of the inhabitants of all the dilVerent States es- 
sentially correspond and coincide. They are all bound 
together by the same mighty bands of political and 
commercial liberty. Our civil institutions, and religious 
toleration, tend to produce habits of intelligence and in- 
dependence ; we have no division into the higher, middle, 
and lower orders ; we have no grandees, and we have 
no populace ; we are all people. 

J\''aiural equality we cannot have, because some men 
will be taller, or stronger, or richer, or wiser than 
others, in spite of every eifort of human legislation. But 
political equality we possess in a degree far superior to 
what has been known in any other country, ancient or 
modern. All our civil and religious institutions are 
framed in the spirit of social equality. By the high 
wages of labour, the abundance and facility of subsist- 
ence, the general dilTusion of clementajy education, and 
the right of universal sulfrage, every man, not black, is 
a citizen, sensible of his own personal importance. Not 
more than one million of our people reside in the large 
cities and towns ; the other nine millions live on farms 
or in villages; most of them are lords of the soil they 
cultivate, and some are wealthy. This subdivision of 
property, operating as a kind of Agrarian law, and aided 
by the abolition of the rights of primogeniture, the re- 
peal of the statutes of entails, and the equal distribution 
of land and money among all the children, gives an in- 
dividual independence and an equality of manner to our 
population, unknown in Europe; every country of which 
is yet deeply scarred by the stabs and gashes of baro- 
nial dominion and feudal vassalage. 

The personal independence which every one in the 
United States may enjoy, in am/ calling, by ordinary in- 
dustry, and common prudence, is in itself one oi the 
greatest of political blessings. So long as a man obeys 
that injuuclion of Scripture, to "owe no one any thing," 



RESOURCES OP THE UNITED STATES. 447 

(and in this country debt must arise from idleness, of 
vice, or misfortune, or folly,) he is as free as the air he 
breathes ; he knows no superior, not even the President, 
whom his vote has either helped or hindered in the 
career of exaltation. But this personal independence 
can only be supported by a man's cleaving exclusively 
to his own calling, and diligently discharging its dutie^^ 
and demands ; for the moment he wants the aid of his 
fellow-citizens, in any capacity or character, and has 
competitors for that aid, he is subjected to a scene of in- 
trigue, electioneering, influence, and cabal, that would 
not have disg-raced a conclave of cardinals, when the 
popedom was worth having. 

Generally speaking, those are most attached to a 
country who own a part of its soil, and have therefore 
a stake in its welfare. But a great majority of the 
American people have this stake. In other countries 
low Avages, and unremitted labour stupefy the under- 
standing, break the spirit, and vitiate the virtue of the 
great body of the population. In the United States the 
price of labour is high, and constant toil merely optional ; 
but the ocean and the land offer continual incitements to 
industry, by opening inexhaustible regions of enterprise 
and wealth. In consequence, all is motion ; every one 
follows some vocation, and the whole country is in per- 
petual progress ; each industrious individual feels him- 
self rising in the scale of opulence and importance; and 
the universal nation, growing with the growth of its 
aspiring children, hastens onward, with continually-aug- 
menting velocity, towards the maturity of resistless 
strength and unrivalled power. 

A people so lately sprung from, and so closely con- 
nected with, Europe, must greatly resemble it in man- 
ners. But the universality of employment, and general 
equality of fortune, enable, and cause the Americans to 
steer equally clear of the luxurious refinement and the 
rude vulgarity of Europe. Hospitality and politeness, 
are the common virtues of the United States. Mr. 
Birkbeck was peculiarly struck with the urbanity and 
civilization that prevail throughout this country, even ia 



448 RESOURCES OF THE L'MTEt) STATE*. 

situations the most remote from our large cities. In hii 
journey from Norfolk, on the Virginia coast, to the 
heart of the western country, he did not for a moment 
lose sight of the manners of civilized life. He found 
neither the excess of artificial refinement, nor the ex- 
treme of vulgarity, which exist in his own country. In 
every department of common life, he here saw employ- 
ed persons far superior in education, habits, and manners, 
to the corresponding classes in England. He complains 
however, that the taverns in the great towns east of the 
Alleghany mountains, which lay in their route westward, 
afforded nothing corresponding Avith their habits and 
notions of convenient accommodation, except the ex^ 
pense. 

He says, that every thing in these places is grega- 
lious ; every thing is public by day and by night ; for 
even the night affords no privacy in an American inn. 
Whatever be the number of guests, they must eat in 
tnnss^ and sleep i?i mass. Three times a day, the great 
bell rings, and a hundred people rush from all quarters, 
to eat a hurried meal, composed of tlfty different dishes. 
The breakfast consists of fish, flesh, and fowl, bread, 
butter, eggs, coffee, and tea; the dinner resembles 
breakfast, with the omission of tea and coffee, and the 
addition of fermented liquors; the supper is a repetition 
of the breakfast. Alter which, the guests are crammed 
into rooms crowded with beds, like the wards of an 
hospital ; where they undress in public, and generally 
receive a human partner in their bed, in addition to the 
myriads of gentlemen in brown livery., who occupy every 
house on a perpetual lease. Into the horrors of the 
kitchen of an American inn, with its darkness, and ne- 
groes, and dirt, I have no appetite to follow Mr. Birk- 
beck, who however, accounts properly, for the independ- 
ent air of the landlord, so entirely in contrast with the 
obsequious civility of an English tavern-keeper, by 
stating, that he is generally a man of property, culti- 
vating his own farm, and a general, or colonel, or at 
least, a captain of militia, and, consequently, feels him- 
self fully as great as the guests whom he entertains, and 



RJESOURCES OF THE UiMTED StATES. 440 

behaves rather as if he confers, than receives a favour, 
by accommodating them and their attendants, and re- 
ceiving their money. 

The pohtical equahty which pervaded the United 
States, opens all official ranks to all persons ; and ac- 
cordingly, we have innkeepers, and tailors, and shoe- 
makers, and retail shop-keepers, as well as merchants, 
and lawyers, and farmers, among our generals and co- 
lonels ; whence arises that equal air of demeanor and 
manner, that so much surprises Europeans who have 
been accustomed to the insolence of wealth and power 
on one hand, and to the servihty of pauperism and de- 
pendence on the other. Besides, the Europeans gene- 
rally do 7iot receive so much civility from our taverners, 
because they are very apt to insult us, by exaggerated 
comparisons of the marvellous superiority of European 
wisdom, convenience, comfort, elegance, and refinement, 
to those of the United States; and an American citizen, 
who is taught from his cradle to despise the nations ot 
Europe, as paupers and slaves, is not very nice in showing 
his contempt at these sublimated parallels. 

In another part of his notes, Mr. Birkbeck proceeds 
to offer the result of his own observations on the man- 
ners of that section of the Union which he saw ; namely, 
part of the southern, and nearly the whole of the west- 
ern division. He thinks, that as the Americans have no 
central focus of fashion, or local standard of politeness, 
no remote situation affords any apology for sordid appa- 
rel or coarse behaviour; and he found no examples of 
that rural simplicity, that embarrassed, awkward, sheep- 
ish air, so frequent among the peasantry, and even the 
farmers, of England. This self-possession, he attributes 
xery justly to the political equality of our people ; the 
consciousness of which, accompanies all their intercourse, 
and operates most powerfully on the manners of the 
lowest class. He complains, however, that cleanliness^ 
in house and person, is neglected to a degree quite dis- 
gusting to an Englishman; aini tells of court-hous< s in 
the western countrv, used as places of worship, in which 



450 lUCSOURCtS OK THE LMTED STATLb. 

all kinds of filth have been accumulating ever since tliey 
were built. 

The truth is, the people of the southern and western 
States, generally speaking, are not cleanly either in 
their persons, or houses, or habits. The inhabitants of 
the New-England and middle States are, in general, 
given to cleanliness, particularly the Dutch settlers and 
their descendants. There is, however, one very fiUhy 
custom, which pervades the whole Union ; I mean, the 
habit of eating and smoking tobacco. Our judges and 
lawyers, politicians and parsons, doctors and merchants, 
army and navy, farmers and mechanics, in a word, our 
whole people, from the President of the United States 
down to the pauper in the alms-house, smoke and chew 
tobacco, and abundantly eject its concocted juice in all 
places, at all times, and under all circumstances, without 
any remorse of conscience, or regard for the white 
draperies and finer sensibilities of our most delicate ladies ; 
or for its execrable annoyance to all those who did not 
happen to be cradled in America. The late Mr. Gou- 
verneur Morris, during his residence abroad, saw that 
the use of tobacco, save in the shape of snuff, was con- 
fined, in Europe, to the lowest orders of soldiers and 
sailors, boors and mechanics. On his return home, two 
of his male cousins began to question him on European 
habits and manners, keeping him all the while under 
the cross-fire of their segars. At length one of them 
said, " Mr. Morris, do the gentlemen in Europe smoke 
much .'^" " Sir,*' replied Mr. Morris, striking his jambi 
de bois sharply on the ground, " Gentlemen smoke in no 
country." 

The amusements of the Americans do not exhibit so 
ferocious an aspect as those of the English ; they being 
more addicted to dancing and music, than to bull-bait- 
ing, cock-fighting, and boxing- Not that the English 
are, really, more ferocious than the American people ; 
but the United States either never adopted, or have laid 
aside, certain savage customs still preserved in England. 
Theatrical exhibitions, balls, routs, the sports of the 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 451 

field and turf, and the pleasures of the table, are the 
chief amusements of our people, and conducted much 
in the same way as in Europe ; from which quarter we 
generally import our players, dancingmasters, singers, 
and musicians; such commodities, as yet, making no 
part of the staple of the United States. When Pericles 
was asked, if he could play on any instrument, he an- 
swered, " No, I cannot fiddle, but I can make a little 
empire a great one." Our routs resemble those of Lon- 
don ; we cram a hundred people into a room not large 
enough to contain fifty ; making it, as an Irish member 
said of the House of Commons, after the union, " as 
full as it can hold, and fuUer.'''' They create human in- 
tercourse without human sympathy, and cut down all 
distinctions of talent and information to the dead level of 
frivolous vacuity. They seem entirely to have super- 
ceded, in our large cities, the good old family way of 
visiting friends and acquaintance, without ceremony, 
and without a tremendous invitation of six weeks ahead. 
Marriages in the United States are earlier than in 
Europe ; there being no constraint by statute, and no 
fear of not being able to maintain a family in so young 
a country, Avhose extensive territory offers an abundant 
provision to every species of industry, when regulated 
by discretion. Any clergyman of any sect, or any jus- 
tice of the peace, may marry any couple without asking 
any questions. And, notwithstanding Dr. Johnson's 
sarcasm, " That marriages are made in haste, and re- 
pented of at leisure," celibacy is an unnatural, as well 
as an unsocial state ; 

" For earthlier happy k the rose distiJl'd, 

Than that which withering on the virgin thorn, 
Lives, grows, and dies in single blessedness." 

And, however the yearnings of ambition, or the pur- 
suits of learning, or the occupations of business may, for 
a time, absorb a vigorous spirit, yet every man, in whose 
heart the charities of life are not extinguished, nor the 
milk of human kindness dried up, wishes, before he falls 



452 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES'. 

into the sere and yellow leaf of autumn, that his blood 
may run in the veins of some living thing; and that his 
age may be surrounded by those whose affection and 
reverence may double unto him the delight of well- 
earned reputation and honour. For all the purposes of 
connubial happiness, early marriages are best titted, be- 
cause the youthful pair have time, and opportunity, and 
power, gradually, 1o mould themselves to each other'fs 
temper, and disposition, and habits, and manners; 
whereas, later marriages require much good temper, 
good sense, and, above all, confirmed domestic habits 
on both sides, to render the union hap])y ; because the 
character of both parties is already fixed, and not capa- 
ble of that flexile adaptation to the circumstances of 
life, so characteristic of ardent and ingenuous youth. 
Perhaps, within the whole compass of human learning, 
there is not a more pathetic appeal to the heart, than 
when Eliza says to Dido, " Nee dulces natos, Veneris 
nee praBmia noras." 

Marriages, in the United States, are not only con- 
tracted at an early age, but, in general, from disinter- 
ested motives. Indeed, owing to our social institutions 
and habits, individual fortunes are seldom sufficiently 
large, compared with the overgrown family opulence of 
Europe, to induce mere money matches, where the 
estates, not the parties, are united. There is no fear 
with us, of the proverb, so commonly levelled in Eng- 
land against sentimental affection, that love in a cottage 
generally ends in the cottage without love ; because any 
man, in any calling, if he be industrious, honest, and 
careful, may make ample provision lor his wife and 
children. With us, the sanctity of the marriage bed is 
seldom profaned; nor is seduction frequent. The fa- 
miliar, but innocent, intercourse of the sexes renders 
American society peculiarly interesting and delightful. 
It is not confined, either before or after marriage, as in 
some parts of Europe, to a narrow circle of exclusive 
aristocracy, where the portion, and not the person, is 
the object of affection. In the United States it is unre- 
sitrained, chaste, and honourable. Our well-educated 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. ^^^ 

find virtuous women are kindly and aflfectionately treated 
by their husbands, loved and reverenced by their chil- 
dren, and respected by society — of which they compose 
the brightest ornament and honour. Hence it is, that 
without pretending to so high a polish of elaborate and 
artificial refinement, as some of tlie selector societies in 
Europe exhibit, the United States display a more gene- 
ral urbanity and civilization than are to be found in any 
other country. 

An extensive territory, a fertile soil, a good climate, 
are all well calculated to afford abundant means of sub- 
sistence, to quicken the growth of population, to ensure 
the health, activity, and strength of the human species. 
The occupations of agriculture, the ranging in the 
woods for game, the locomotive and migratory habits 
of the Americans, have all a direct tendency to impart 
agility and strength to the sinews and muscle^ of the 
body. An increasing and efficient population does not 
depend, however, merely upon the multitude of early 
marriages, and frequency of births, but chiefly upon the 
great proportion of children that are born being reared 
to maturity. In the United States the marriages ave- 
rage six births, of which four are reared. Mr. Storch, 
in his " Historico Statistical Picture of the Russian Em- 
pire^''^ says, the -boors in Russia have generally tivelve 
children to one marriage ; of which seldom more than 
one-fourth are reared. This great mortality among the 
children, occasioned, no doubt, by hardship and want, 
on the part of the peasantry, caused Catharine the Se- 
cond to complain, in her celebrated " Instructions^'''' to 
her different ministers, and ask of them the causes, why 
" this hope of the government is defeated ?" Now, the 
political doctors of Russia ought to have informed their 
mistress, that the only wise institutions by which the 
evil could be remedied, would be the establishment of 
such a frame of civil society, as to secure permanent 
liberty, public and private, by equitable laws,«a regular 
administration of justice, the general diffusion of senti- 
ments of personal respectability* moral restraint, roli- 



454 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

gious feeling, industry, sobriety, and cleanliness among 
the people. 

Wherever these social blessings occur, there never 
will be, necessarily and of course, that is to say, without 
the intervention of epidemics and fatal diseases, any 
very great mortality among the children born in any 
country; because in old and long-established nations, 
where the population presses hard upon the means of 
subsistence, the marriages will be late, the births pro- 
portionally few, and the children generally reared to 
man's estate ; and in a young country, as in these United 
States, where these social blessings do actually exist, 
where the means of subsistence are abundant, and there 
is plenty of land to give elbow-room for a rapid increase 
of population, the marriages will be early, the births 
frequent, and most of the children reared. 

M. Volney, in his " VieuP'' of the United States, em- 
phatically notices the idle, babbling, uneffectual life of a 
colony of French farmers in the VVestem country, when 
contrasted with the patient, plodding industry of the 
Scottish, English, and German asfriculturists in the same 
neighbourhood ; and more especially when contrasted 
with the far superior activity and enterprise of the na- 
tive American settlers in reclaiming the waste and wil- 
derness from the dominion of the beasts of tlie forest, 
malcing the valleys wave thick with the teeming grain, 
and causing the solitary places to blossom as the rose. 
Indeed these United States possess unrivalled advan- 
tages for promoting a rapid increase of their inhabitants ; 
and also for rearing a most cedent population ; so that, 
if America shall spring forward during tlie next, with 
the same velocity and force with which she has moved 
progressively during the last fifty years, she will then 
whiten every sea with her commercial canvass ; bear her 
naval thunders in triumph to earth's extremest verge ; 
peer above the sovereignty of other nations, and cause 
the elder jvorld to bow its venerable head, white with 
the hoar of ages, beneath the paramount power and in- 
fluence of this younger daughter of the civilized globe. 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 455 

The habits and manners of the United States are con- 
siderably influenced by the eager appetite for the ac- 
quisition of wealth, which is necessarily the great ab» 
sorbing passion of all new and thinly settled countries ; 
and also by the perpetual proneness to mingle in the 
party-politics of the day, which is the natural conse- 
quence of our popular and democratic institutions. Of 
course these pursuits prevail most in the large cities on 
our seaboard ; because they afford the greatest facilities 
of commercial enterprise, and the busiest scene of poli- 
tical exertion. Yet the trading spirit is diffused over ali 
the country ; our farmers, mechanics, soldiers, seamen, 
lawyers, legislators, physicians, nay, sometimes, even 
our clergy, indulge in mercantile speculations. Even 
politics themselves give way to the universal desire of 
speedily amassing money. The peculiar circumstances 
of the Union have conspired to foster the growth of this 
trading spirit. During five and twenty years, while 
war impoverished and wasted Europe, commerce en- 
riched the United States, with a rapidity, and to an ex- 
tent unexampled in the history of nations. Since the 
peace of 1815, indeed, the diminution of our foreign 
trade, and the incredible number of insolvencies, oiight 
to teach us, both to moderate our eager craving after 
wealth, and that extravagance of expenditure, far sur-s 
passing the rate of living among the corresponding 
classes in Europe, which has been almost the necessary 
effect of our sudden and unexampled opulence. 

America has profited in more ways than one by Bri- 
tish capital ; that is to say, she has grown richr not 
merely by the amount and length of credit which the 
merchants of Britain have given her, but also by her 
own numberless insolvents having made it a point of 
conscience never to pay a single stiver to a British credi- 
tor. From the peace of 1783 to 1789, the British ma- 
nufacturers did not receive more than 07i£~fhird of the 
value of all the goods which t!)ey sold to their American 
customers; and since the peace' of 1815, up to the pre- 
sent hour, they have not received one-foiirlli. This lior- 
riblc piracy upon British propertv is supported, if noi 



4i>6 REbOLRCLS OF THE L'MTLD bTATtS. 

created, by our system of state insolvent laws. No honest 
man can devise a valid reason, why Congress should 
not exert its constitutional power oi' passing a uniform 
bankrupt act, and thus give our foreign creditors some 
chance of an occasional dividend. At present every 
State has its own insolvent law, that is to say, there are 
iyjeniy different legal modes of evading the payment of 
debts in the Union. According to the present system, 
the creditor has no security for the recoverv of his mo- 
ney but the personal honesty of his debtor, which, some- 
times, is not the best of all j)ossible bonds. If the debtor 
thinks the money better in his own pocket than in that 
of his creditor, he has twenty different governments out 
of which to select the theatre best fitted for the pur- 
poses of fraud and knavery. And to speak tenderly of 
our insolvents, they seem to understand their business 
very well. 

As a natural consequence of tiie sudden influx ol' 
wealth into the United States, too many of the Amen- 
cans have departed from the salutary habits of economy 
which characterized their English and Dutch ancestors, 
and have become the most extravagant people on earth. 
In proportion to its wealth and population, our city of 
New-York far surpasses all the rest of the civilized 
world in its rate of expenditure, and amount of insolven- 
cies, of which last upwards of six thousand occurred in 
1811. It costs, at least, one-third more to live he^^ 
than in London ; which, on the whole, is perhaps th<> 
dearest place in Europe. To be sure, there is no occa- 
sion in this countrv to feel that perpetual anxiety aboiu 
pecuniary matters, which is entailed upon all the people 
Ml England, exceptin;^ a few overgrown capitalists, by 
the enormous expenditure of the government, and the 
pressure of universal taxation. But our people, gene- 
rally, and particularly in the lar^e cities, have fallen in- 
to habits of personal and family expense, not only fai- 
surpassing those of the corresponding classes ;n Europe, 
but also far exceeding the fair earnings of our merchant's 
and professional men; many oi" whom become their 
own executors, and leave their children pnuj)er». and 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 457 

the more helpless for having been brought up In idle- 
ness and extravagance. It is the more surprising that 
the Americans should hasten to impoverish themselves 
with such heedless prodigality; because, as there is 
neither birth nor rank in the United States, vt'ealth is 
our only mark of distinction; it is, in fact, our great 
social virtue, as poverty is the unpardonable crime ; and 
in no part of the world is the learned pate required to 
duck to the golden fool, with more obsequious serviHty 
than in our free and independent republic. 

i^But well-regulated economy^ equally removed from 
parsimony on one hand, and from extravagance on the 
other, is alike the basis of all domestic independence 
and comfort, and of all national wealth and prosperity. 
Women can seldom earn^ but they may often save, a 
fortune, by judicious management. The American la- 
dies, however, are not generally taught the importance 
and use of economy. And it requires more moral nerve 
than most men possess to practise frugality amidst the 
surrounding extravagance of the whole neighbourhood. 
Whence, a man's own personal and domestic vanity, 
seconded by the eternal exhortations of his wife and 
daughters, leads too many of our respectable families 
into that poverty which, in itself, is one of the greatest 
of all social evils, which neither prevents nor softens any 
other evil, but exasperates and darkens all other cala- 
mities. Of course no one in his senses supposes that 
the rich and the poor are to live according to the same 
rate of penurious expenditure ; since the magnificence 
of the opulent puts in motion a considerable amount of 
productive industry and ingenuity ; and is a better 
mode of distributing money, by employing the labouring 
classes, than by giving it as alms. Nor is it any part 
of sound philosophy for men of talents to live like 
ascetics, or self-denying monks, under pretence of being 
abstracted from the allurements of time and sense. 
When Descartes was dining with the Stadtholder of 
Holland, the worthy Dutch magistrate observed the 
metaphysician demolish the dessert with indefatigable 
perseverance, and bawled out, ''Whnt! f\<wA ^ philoso' 



4jtJ ltEt.OURCty OF THL LMIED STATES. 

j)hcr cat ice, and creams, and sweetmeat ?"' '' Why," 
answered Descartes, "should your lii<rliness tlilnk that 
all the good things of this world were made only lor 
blockheads .?'' 

In addition to the general extravagance, tlicre are 
other causes whicli prevent the accumulation oi" familij 
wealth in the United States. The abolition of the sta- 
tute of entails, and of the common law of descent, pre- 
vents the formation of new, and ensures the extinction 
of old families. There are scarcely a dozen of the an- 
cient Dutch and British stocks now remaining in the 
city of New-York. Say, an industrious frugal man 
amasses wealth, by a long life of successful trade, or 
laborious law, or lucky land-jobbing; he dies, and all 
his property is divided among his children ; of which a 
large squadron is generally left, and the share of each 
is about enough to make them all idle, and not sufficient 
to alford a decent independence. In numeious instan- 
ces, they sink eventually into paupers, and new men 
from the country, gradually rise into eminence and 
weahh, and leave their offspring to run a course of idle- 
ness, folly, extravagance, and ruin. Whence, a perpe- 
tual fluctuation of property, and of family, takes place 
throuo;hout the Union. Some ffreat men in Europe, 
among Avhom Mr. 13urke is one of the most conspicuous, 
have undertaken to demonstrate, that the power o( per- 
pduating property is essentially necessary to give 
strengUi and ballast to a nation, and link the present 
Avitli the past and future generations of men. But this 
right of primogeniture was known only to the artificial, 
unnatural state of society called the feudal system. And 
it seems contrary to the first principles of natural justice, 
that the eldest son should take all the real estate, and 
the other children be left destitute, for no other crime 
than being younger than he. This scheme also bears 
peculiarly hard upon the daughters, who are doubly 
helpless, on account of their luxurious habits, as well as 
their poverty. 

Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as social sub- 
ordination in the United States. Parents have no com- 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 459 

mand over their children, nor teacliers over iheir scho- 
lars, nor lawyers, nor physicians, over their pupils, nor 
farmers over their labourers, nor merchants over their 
clerks, carmen, and porters, nor masters over their ser- 
vants. All are equal, all do as they list, and all are free 
7iot to work, except the master, who must be himself a 
slave if he means his business to prosper, for he has no 
control over any other head, eyes, or hands than his 
own. Owing, perhaps, to the very popular nature of 
our institutions, the American children are seldom taught 
that profound reverence for, and strict obedience to, 
their parents, which are at once the basis of domestic 
comfort, and of the welfare of the children themselves. 
Of course, where there is no parental authority, there 
can be no discipline in schools and colleges. If a pre- 
ceptor presume to strike, or effectually punish a boy, he 
most probably loses at least one scholar, perhaps more. 
And as no inconvenience attaches to a boy's being ex- 
pelled from school or college, the teachers have no au- 
thority, nor learning any honour, in the United States. 
Nay, the independence of children on their parents, 
is carried so far, as to raise doubts if a father or mother 
has any right to interfere in the marriage of a son or 
daughter. A few weeks since, this question was pub- 
licly discussed at one of our New-York debating clubs, 
for the edification of a numerous audience, both male 
and female ; and it was determined by a stout majority, 
that in a free and enlightened republic, children are at 
liberty to marry whom they please, without any interfe- 
rence on the part of the parents, either in the shape of 
advice, or command, or otherwise ; and for this most sa- 
gacious reason, that the child, and not the parent, is 
about to commit matrimony; it being quite an exploded 
prejudice, that parents can have any possible concern 
in the welfare and happiness of their offspring. This 
doctrine doubtless, is palatable to every needy and un- 
principled adventurer, who wishes to persuade some silly 
daughter of an opulent father, to accompany him to the 
next trading justice, who, for a few shillings, will per- 



460 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

form the marriage ceremony, and consign her to a hus- 
band, and disgrace, and misery, for Hfe. 

There is no such relation as master and servant in the 
United States : indeed, the name is not permitted ; — 
" help''' is the designation of one Avho condescends to 
receive wages for service. This help is generally 
afforded by free blacks, and Irish ; our natives seldom 
lowering the dignity of free-born republicans so much, 
as to enter a house in the capacity of servants. Even 
Mr. Birkbeck, who is so much enamoured of our de- 
mocracy, is somewhat troubled at what he calls the 
bigoted aversion of the Americans to domestic service ; 
and that they, confounding the term servant with that 
of glave, should prefer keeping their children at home, 
in idleness, and often in rags, when they might be pro- 
fitably and pleasantly employed in attending upon their 
more affluent fellow-citizens. He concludes with the 
discovery, that if a gentleman wishes to be waited on 
and served in the United States, he must wait upon and 
serve himself; which is true enough. I remember, at 
Boston, a few years since, the mistress of the house where 
I lodged desired her negro man to go on some errand 
for her; the answer was, "I cannot, for I am engaged 
to meet some gentlemen and ladies (all negroes,) at an 

assembly this evening, in street." And the lady 

"Was obliged to have her service unperformed, while a 
stout fellow, to whom she gave twelve dollars a month 
wages, was regaling himself at a black ball in the neigh- 
bourhood. 

The national vanity of the United States surpasses 
that of any other country, not even excepting France. 
It blazes out every where, and on all occasions — in their 
conversation, newspapers, pamphlets, speeches, and 
books. They assume it as a self-evident fact, that the 
Americans surpass all other nations in virtue, wisdom, 
valour, hbcrty, government, and every other excellence. 
All Europeans they profess to despise, as ignorant pau-- 
-^ers and dastardly slaves. Even during President 
Washington's administration, Congress debated three 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 461 

days upon the important position that " America was 
the most enlightened nation on earth ;" and finally deci- 
ded the affirmative by a small majority. At the break- 
ing out of the late war with England, General Moreau, 
who then resided in this city, was asked if our officers 
did not seek to avail themselves of his military skill and 
experience, by propounding questions to him ? He re- 
plied, " there is not an ensign in the American army 
who does not consider himself a much greater tactician 
than General Moreau." And our present President, in 
his recent tour through the Union, told the people of 
Kennebunk, in the district of Maine, " that the United 
States were certainly the most enlightened nation in the 
world." 

The causes of this national vanity are obvious ; our 
popular institutions, vesting the national sovereignty in 
the people, have a direct tendency to make that people 
self-important and vain. Add to which, the incessant 
flattery they receive in newspapers, and pubhc talks, 
about their collective majesty, wisdom, power, dignity, 
and so forth ; their unexampled prosperity in the occu- 
pations of peace ; and lastly, their actual achievements 
in war. Twice have they grappled, in deadly encoun- 
ter, with the most powerful, tne bravest, and the most 
intelligent nation in Europe; and twice have they 
triumphed over the most skilful commanders, and best 
appointed troops of that nation, in the battlefield, and 
on the ocean. 

The result of all is, that the American people possess 
physical, intellectual, and moral materials of national 
greatness, superior to those of any other country ; and, 
in order to render the United States the greatest nation 
in the world, they have only gradually to augment the 
power of their general goverment ; to tighten the cords, 
and strengthen the stakes of their Federal Union ; to 
organize a judicious system of internal finance ; to pro- 
vide for the more general diffijsion of religious worship; 
to enlarge and elevate their system of liberal education ; 
to increase the dimensions, and exalt the standard of 
their literature, art, and science. 



CONCLUSION. 



An order to show the necessity of radically strengthen- 
ing and vigorously administering the general govern- 
ment of the United States, the remaining pages will be 
devoted to exhibiting an eye-glance of the present con- 
dition of Europe, and its probable consequences to the 
■world at large, and to this country in particular. 

What portion of Europe, insular or continental, pro- 
mises a continuance of repose ? Does France^ with a 
feeble throne, recently reinstated, amidst a discontented, 
mortified, vain, unprincipled people, torn to pieces by 
contending factions, and bent to the earth by the in- 
creasing difficulties of her finance? Can England 
alone, reeling as she is beneath the weight of her own 
burden, stem the tide of that revolutionary fury which 
pervades Europe from the Tagus to the Neva, and 
threatens, once more, to dissolve the elements of so- 
cial order, and roll into ruin those principalities and 
powers which have been so recently restored or elevated 
to their present eminence ? In Italy, in Germany, in 
Poland, and in the United Netherlands, all seems to be 
disjointed ; every thing is afloat ; the ancient boundaries 
and landmarks of kingdoms are removed, the people 
are transferred, like herds of cattle, from one master to 
another, and all their feelings, passions, and prejudices 
kept in a state of continual ferment and exasperation. 

The shock, occasioned by twenty-five years of revo- 
lutionary conflict, has been too violent, to permit the 
mere re-establishment of the old dynasties to produce a 
secure and permanent repose. Two of the main props 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. ^^3 

of European society have been grievously impaired; 
namely, the influence of the intermediate bodies, or or- 
ders, and the balance of power. The importance of the 
clergy and nobihty, as component parts of the state or 
commonwealth, has been too much diminished, ever to 
recover its former weight and strength. For want of 
the influence of these intermediate bodies, which, prior 
to the French revolution, served at once to secure to 
the sovereign the respect and obedience of his people, 
and to the people mildness and moderation on the part 
of the sovereign, it is to be feared that Europe now will 
perpetually oscillate between the struggles and triumphs 
of sedition and despotism. The only ground of hope 
for European peace would be the extension of the re- 
presentative system, which might enlighten the executive 
councils, strengthen the authority of the sovereign, 
establish and preserve the liberties of the people. 

For political revolutions are always occasioned or 
preceded by disaffection in the great mass of the com- 
munity ; and ambitious and profligate men, consulting 
only their own interests, would in vain labour to pro- 
duce a national convulsion, if the people were conteated, 
and at ease. By what possible means could any un- 
principled demagogues incite the American people to a 
revolution, in their present happy and prosperous state. 
Moderation, justice, and an easy yoke can, alone, 
give stability and permanence to governments. But 
the danger is, that, after so terrible an explosion, a spirit 
of distrust or resentment, and the predilection for arbi- 
trary power which is too common with all rulers, whether 
imperial, or monarchal, or republican, may lead the 
governments of Europe to adopt maxims of severity and 
restraint — the necessary consequence of which, in the 
i)resent feverish state of the world, must be a perilous 
popular reaction, that nothing but magnanimity and 
mildness in the ruling powers can either avert or dis- 
arm, when once excited. This revolutionary reaction, 
an incident of human nature, in all ages and countries, 
but peculiarly characteristic of the present period of 
insurgency and turbulence, the wisdom and forecast of 



|(J,J^ RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES, 

cverj good government ^vlll labour not to provoke. In 
the present generation, certainly, and, perhaps, in the 
next following, there will be great danger of this re- 
action. Its symptoms, in various gradations of violence 
and force, have already broken out, under the popular 
monarchy of England, the, as yet, undefined sovereignty 
of France, the senseless, imbecile despotism of Spain, 
the limited and guarded government of the United Ne- 
therlands, and some of the smaller Itahan and German 
principalities. The military sway of Russia, Austria, 
and Prussia have, hitherto, kept down this natural in- 
surgency against all arbitrary rule in their subjects, 
whose reaction, however, will be the more terrible, in 
proportion to the protracted resistance of their respect- 
ive governments, to the introduction of a representa- 
tive system and popular institutions. 

Notwithstanding the re-establishment of the old dy- 
nasties, the balance of power ^ in Europe, cannot be re- 
stored, as it existed prior to the French revolution, 
when Austria, and England, and Russia were, general- 
ly, ranged on the same sides, in order to counterpoise 
the ascendancy of France, and the growing greatness 
of Prussia. The system of equilibrium is, at all times, 
and now more than ever, merely a system of provident 
jealousy for the great powers ; and for those of a second- 
ary order it arises out of the necessity of a mutual sup- 
port against the encroachments of over-bearing neigh- 
bours. A slight eye-glance at the present condition of 
Europe, will show at once that it is not easy to regu- 
late the balance of power in that quarter of the world ; 
nor probable that peace and harmony can be long main- 
tained among its different sovereigns. 

The course of the smaller States will, as heretofore, 
be determined by that of the primary powers. Prussia 
has only a population of icu or eleven milhons, scattered 
over a disjointed territory, that has neither frontier nor 
centre ; a population too, multiform and dissonant, not 
bound together in themselves, or towards their govern- 
ment, by long habits of kindred feeling, and loyal at- 
tachment Its government is purely military, aad, con- 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 465 

sequently, ill adapted to the present tendencies towards 
popular representation and sovereignty, that prevail all 
over Christendom. The Emperor Joseph the second 
used to say, in reference to Prussia, " if she be ever 
pressed vigorously by a powerful neighbour, she will find 
that an army and an exchequer are not a nation." 

Austria numbers a population of nearly thirty millions, 
but her dominions are scattered over Germany, Poland, 
and Italy; her Italian and Polish subjects are not well 
affected ; her fine provinces of Hungary, Bohemia, Sty- 
ria, Carinthia, and Galiicia, in themselves capable of 
developing vast resources, and maintaining an immense 
number of inhabitants, are so strangely mismanaged as 
to be comparatively in a state of nature, and unproduc- 
tive; — whereas, if well regulated, they, together with 
the hereditary dominions of Austria, might supply the 
Austrian government with a sufficient force in men and 
money, to enable it to stride the balance, and preserve 
the equipoise of Europe. But the government of Aus- 
tria is inert and feeble, her finances are shattered, and 
her people have not enough of the redeeming spirit of 
liberty in them to enable her to stay the progress of the 
Giant of the North, when he rises to direct his steps 
towards the supremacy of Europe. 

The physical advantages of Spain are at least equal 
to those of any country in Europe. Her localities are 
admirably calculated to make her a great and predomi- 
nating nation. Placed as she is between the ocean and 
the Mediterranean, and bulwarked in by the Pyrencan 
mountains on the only side where she touches the Eu- 
ropean continent ; with a territory covering a hundred 
and fifty thousand square miles, and blessed with an 
abundant soil and luxuriant climate ; rich in all navigable 
capacities ; containing a population of twelve millions of 
inhabitants, and able to maintain, under a due culture of 
the land, and a well-administered government, at least 
thirty millions of souls ; with a numerous peasantry, pa- 
tient, hardy, and bold ; with mountaineers, vigilant, ac- 
tive, and intrepid ; vi^ith borderers on the ocean, expert, 
adventurous, invincible seamen. Previous to the battle 

59 



466 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED SJATESf 

of Rocroi, the Spanish infantry was the best in Europe 
And, even now, after her lont; nijjht of darkness, ijrno- 
ranee, and superstition, Spain has only to develope the 
mind of lier children, by the free and general diffusion 
of art, science, and literature, in order to enable her to 
rank in power, influence, and renown, with the most 
civilized and illustrious nations of the earth. 

But Spain is an awful instance, e contrario^ of the truth 
of the position, that the strength, prosperity, and great- 
ness of a country are intimately connected with the 
liberty and intelligence of its people. Human reason is 
not the ability or the effort of any one human being; but 
it is the great result of the learning and reflection of 
numbers, arising from the intellectual lights, mutually 
communicated, and examined, either verbally, or in wri- 
ting, and, consequently, human reason itself, is just in its 
conceptions, clear, profound, and comprehensive in its 
views, precisely in proportion to the number of general- 
ly educated and well informed minds that are actively 
employed, at any given period of the world, in exploring 
and disseminating the lights of science and literature, 
throughout those sections of the earth, which the rays 
of knowledge are permitted to penetrate. Hence, the 
enormous difference between the actual power and in- 
formation of the human mind, in different ajres and coun- 
tries. At one time and place, the intellect of man blazes 
forth in excessive strength and splendour over all the 
horizon — at another place and period, it is only dimly 
discerned in the distance, darkling in ignorance and su- 
perstition, upon the borders of chaos and old night. 

Hence the necessity of affording to the great mass of 
the people of every community, the means of elementa- 
ry instruction ; if the nation desires to be permanently 
prosperous and powerful in the general activity of its 
intelligence; employed and guided by the superintend- 
ence of the few master spirits that are created tne natural 
guardians of the age in which they live ; the beacons 
and bulwarks of the country they adorn. This is most 
necessary, because as native talent is scattered by the 
Almighty, with an impartial hand, among the children 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 4g7 

of men, the greatest portion of natural genius must al- 
ways be produced amidst the lower and poorer orders 
of society; precisely for this reason, that they «re the 
most numerous class of the community; and an illiterate 
nation is almost entirely deprived of the means of un- 
folding its native capacities into strength and precision, 
by its inability to approach the fountains of informa- 
tion. 

In the year 1808, it was required of the universal 
Spanish nation, to rise in resistance to the most atrocious, 
and most formidable invasion of their rights and claims 
as a people ; they were called upon to strain every bo- 
dily nerve, to direct every ray of intellect, to devote 
every pulsation of the heart, in physical and moral fear- 
lessness, against their terrible and remorseless enemy. 
Nor were the people of Spain wanting in patriotic ar- 
dour and courage ; tliey listened to their country's call, 
and pressed forward with one heart, and one accord, to 
dedicate themselves, body, soul, and spirit, to rescue the 
soil of their nativity, the bones of their fathers, their 
wives, and their little ones, from the grasp of the inva- 
der. But Spanish courage was not seconded by Spanish 
intellect. The mind of Spain had been stifled in the 
sink of ignorance, through the lapse of centuries; and 
more especially during all the reigns of the Bourbon 
dynasty. So that in the year 1808, at the bursting forth 
of the revolution, the want of previous general educa- 
tion exceedingly narrowed and crippled all the national 
efforts. The Spanish nobles, generally, were immersed 
in ignorance, sloth, and profligacy; the great body of 
the people were unacquainted with even the simplest 
rudiments of instruction, they could neither write nor 
read ; the little miserable information that was afloat, 
was confined to the clergy^ and consisted chiefly of the 
scholastic theology, and inquisitorial sophistry and cru- 
elty of the dark and barbarous ages. 

So great indeed, was the dearth of native disciplined 
talent in Spain, that for more than a century preceding 
the revolution, her government had been principally 
directed hy foreigners as ministers of State ; obscure ad- 



463 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

venturers, Irish, Scottish, ItaHan, and French, who were 
hangers-on about the court, and supphed the want of 
Spanish intelhgence, by their own superior address and 
skill. Spain, perhaps, is the only instance on the record 
of nations, of a country of any extent, power, and influ- 
ence, being so extremely deficient in all general educa- 
tion, as to be obliged to have recourse to obscure 
foreigners, to administer her finances, and guide her po- 
litical movements. Owing to this ignorance of the 
community, retarding and confining the growth and 
operations of native talent, the whole seven years of 
peninsular warfare passed away without Spain's being 
able to produce a single first-rate warrior, one superior 
statesman, a solitary efiicient engineer, a profound finan- 
cier, an able negotiator; any one individual, of great 
and comprehensive genius, to redeem his country from 
civil and military death. All her own fighting was hill 
and glen, and parfisan warfare. No military tactics 
were displayed on a large scale by the Spanish com- 
manders. Her colonial governments, also, were still 
suffered to labour under all the vices of the old mal- 
administration. Such were the political and military 
defects of Spain, in consequence of her extreme and 
general ignorance, that in all probability she must have 
sunk for ever under the superior mind and means of 
France, had not Britain interposed between her and 
ruin ; had not the British armies by their skill and prow- 
ess, vanquished the most accomplished generals, and the 
best appointed, and most highly disciplined veterans of 
Napoleon. 

Nor were they wiser in their civil than in their mili- 
tary capacity ; for they passed in what they called their 
new government, from the extreme of single despotism, 
under which they were afflicted by their Bourbon kings, 
into the other extreme of many-headed democracy. 
The Spanish Constitutioyi^ fabricated in the year 1812, 

fives to the King much less positive power, than the 
'ederal Constitution bestows upon the President of the 
United States; only one legislative assembly is allowed; 
the order of nobility, or hereditary aristocracy, is not 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 4Q9 

oven recognized ; no Senate is established ; and the press 
is placed under the guardianship of a committee. A 
worse government could not be devised, than one, in 
which the executive power is weak and unsupported ; 
where there exists no Senate, no permanent representa- 
tive body to interpose its check, its weight of property, 
character, and talent, between the pressure of the sin- 
gle executive, and the fluctuations of the immediate and 
temporary representatives of the people ; where nearly 
all the power of the country, executive, legislative, and 
judicial, is engrossed by the House of Representatives, 
the single branched Cortes, which is filled up by rotation^ 
alike from the inhabitants of Old Spain and Spanish 
America ; and all the members chosen for so short a pe- 
riod of service, that the peninsular representatives could 
not possibly become acquainted with the national wants, 
and the means of remedying them; and the Hispano- 
American members would perform the whole of their 
legislative functions, in the act of sailing backward and 
forward upon the Atlantic ocean. This single-handed 
representative assembly, was the chief wreck-rock of the 
French revolution. The observations of Mr. Burke, 
upon this subject, ought to be treasured up in the re- 
membrance of every political student. 

The return of Ferdinand the Seventh, in the year 
1814, put an end to this strange constitutional medley, 
and restored to the Spaniards the blessings of the Inqui- 
sition, and of a despotism at once cruel and weak, alike 
terrible and despicable ; from the effects of which no-^ 
thing short of a popular revolution can rescue Spain. 
Such a revolution, well conducted^ (of which, indeed, the 
hope is very faint,) might eventually render that coun- 
try a first-rate power; by establishing a free govern- 
ment, with full religious toleration, ffivinff to each Chris- 
tian sect and denommation equal political rights and 
privileges, with a free press, permitting every man to 
publish what he pleases, with no other control than the 
subsequent animadversions of a jury of his countrymen ; 
with a strong, well-guarded executive; a permanent 
senate, comprising the aristocracy of property, talent, 



470 RESOURCES OF THE DMTED STATED. 

and character; a powerful democratic branch of the le- 
gislature, immediately representing the great mass of 
the people ; each of these three branches, the executive, 
Senate, and House of Representatives, having a legisla- 
tive check upon each others proceedings; with an in- 
dependent, enlightened judiciary, appointed by the exe- 
cutive, and not removeable, except for malconduct ; with 
a numerous, well-appointed regular army ; an exten- 
sive and formidable navy ; a skilfully-organized system 
of taxation ; a wide and enterprising foreign commerce ; 
and above all, free scope ana full protection for every 
individual citizen to better his condition by the unre- 
strained exertions of his own industry, skill, and genius, 
in whatever occupation he may choose, without the in- 
tervention of />oor- laws, or the bondage oi apprenticeships. 
France has, for several centuries, been a great and 
formidable power; she has always maintained a military 

f)redominance in Europe, both by her arms and by her 
anguage, giving names and terms to every species of 
military tactics. Shorn of her beams as she now is, 
and somewhat narrowed in her territory, she still retains 
the means of reappearing as a primary power, when a 
few years of peace shall have enabled her to repair her 
shattered finances, and recruit her exhausted popula- 
tion. In addition to her valuable colonial possessions she 
has a compact home territory, covering a surface of 
more than 250,000 square miles, and containing a popu- 
lation of nearly thirty millions of souls ; and situated in 
the very heart and centre of Europe. The climate is 
excellent, and the soil fertile; the political strength of 
the country is greatly augmented by the annihilation of 
the monasteries and convents, and the resumption of 
their endowments; by the sale and consequent cultiva- 
tion of the national and ecclesiastical domains ; the great 
royal and signorial forests, parks, pleasure-grounds, and 
chases; by the subdivision of the large estates into 
small farms, and their transfer to persons possessing 
more capacity and inclination for improvement, than had 
distinguished the former feudal proprietors. 



jRESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. ^<Jj 

Add to this the consoHdation of her municipal laws 
into one national code ; whereas, before the revohition, 
every different province had its distinct system of laws; 
a circumstance that materially thwarted the equal ad- 
ministration of justice, impeded the circulation of pro- 
perty, clogged the growth of productive industry, and 
obstructed the progress towards national improvement, 
opulence, and strength. The country, likewise, is more 
thickly crowded with military institutions, that at once 
diffuse a greater eagerness for a soldier's life, and ren- 
der the means of carrying on offensive warfare more 
abundant and more effectual. And above all, France 
is rendered more formidable to every civilized commu- 
nity, by the increased activity, restlessness, spirit of in- 
justice, rapine, insolence, and oppression, which the re- 
volution has engendered and established. 

The contra-indications to the exhibition of vast na» 
tional power by France, are the exhaustion of her 
elective population ; that is to say, her men able to bear 
arms, by the waste of twenty-five years of sanguinary 
warfare ; the entire derangement of her national system 
of finance ; the annihilation of her foreign commerce ; 
the destruction of her military marine ; the disabling of 
her internal manufactures ; the general impoverishment 
of the country, by the military contributions, and armies 
of occupation of the allied sovereigns. Nevertheless, a 
few years of prudent domestic government, aided by the 
prodigious natural advantages of the country, would be 
sufficient to repair all these national breaches. But the 
moral evils of France cannot so easily be healed. The 
extreme prevalence of infidelity, profligacy, fraud, and 
cruelty, for so many years, has nearly stifled all public 
spirit. During the several revolutionary usurpations, 
all noble sentiments were opposed ; every generous and 
manly opinion wa«s ridiculed and proscribed. These 
governments, both republican and Imperial, w^ere not 
contented with condemning to inaction the virtues which 
they dreaded; but they excited and fomented all the 
bad passions, whose exercise they wanted for the fur- 
therance of their OAvn nefarious designs. 



472 RESOURCES OF THE L^ITED STATES, 

In order to obliterate the traces of public spirit, these 
revohitionary governments tampered with the personal 
interests of individuals; they silenced the still small 
voice of conscience, amidst the uproar of tumultuous 
ambition ; they made every condition of life intolerable, 
except that of devotedness to tliemselves ; they suffered 
no hopes to live, save those alone which they chose to 
gratify; they industriously taught that no ambition, 
however boundless, on the part of the great nation^ could 
be improper; that no pretensions, however arrogant, 
could be exaggerated. Hence, revolutionary France 
presented a scene, in which was exhibited an incessant 
agitation of interests, wishes, hopes, and desires, among 
all classes of people ; nothing was permanent ; nothing 
was quiet ; all was commotion, all was change ; the in- 
stability of every situation left to no man the perform- 
ance of the duties, or the practice of the virtues of his 
condition, because he tliought of emerging from it as 
speedily as possible. In a word, a universal battery 
was incessantly kept up agaiiist religion, morals, com- 
mon honesty, all that can cheer private life, or adorn 
public conduct, by such seductions of power, fraud, 
pleasure, and corruption, as the virtue of revolutionary 
Frenchmen was not sturdy enough to withstand. 

France, therefore, is yet an unextinguished volcano, 
from whoso burning crater probably will be again 
thrown out the smoke, and flame, and northern lava ot 
desolation upon all the surrounding nations. 

At the bursting out of the French revolution, in the 
year 1789, the mind o{ France was in a state of high 
cultivation, at least, so far as regards mere intellectual 
acquisition, without respect to religious and moral cul- 
ture; that is to say, in the physical sciences, in arts, 
and letters. At that period, too, the people of France, 
generally, felt an eager enthusiasm for liberty ; and, 
although this popular disposition was afterward most 
flao-itiously abused, by unprincipled demagogues and 
military despots, yet it did then exist in a very high state 
of sublimation ; and perhaps a portion of this republican 
ferlino; still survives all the horrors of the revolution. 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES; 473 

Prior to this awful epoch the French press had been 
busily employed, for more than half a century, in dis- 
seminating throughout all France the dead-lights of infi- 
delity and jacobinism. The whole public mind was in 
agitation. The very princes of the blood royal pro- 
fessed the new philosophy, while the King himself was 
poring over the pages of ancient history ; the nobles 
encouraged the progress of atheism; the clergy had 
pretty generally discovered popery to be a grave farce, 
and many of them took rei"ue;e from the mummery of 
superstition in profligate unbelief of all religion; the 
sgavaus, the literati, had persuaded themselves that none 
but men of talents ought to govern France, and that 
they themselves were the only men of talents in the 
community ; the negotiators of France were intriguing 
with, disturbing, and influencing every court in Chris- 
tendom ; the great body of the people were made drunk 
with delirious notions of vague, unattainable, impracti- 
cable liberty. 

All the talent of this fine populous country was in 
tumultuous movement. In this critical state of things, 
this precise juncture of aflairs, the revolution exploded, 
and levelled every barrier of the French government ; 
beat down every bulwark of habit, rank, order, and 
establishment; and let loose all the mighty mass of na- 
tive and disciplined talent of twenty-seven millions of 
the most active, ingenious, restless, turbulent, and un- 
principled people in Europe, to prey upon their neigh- 
bours first, and then to disturb and set fire to the four 
corners of the world. Situated in the centre of conti- 
nental Europe, girt round about on all sides with a 
triple frontier of unassailable fortresses; full to the 
overflowing, of a people, abounding in military genius 
and science, and yearning after an increase of their 
already great patrimony of military renown, France, 
almost immediately after the first eruption of her revo- 
lution, poured forth her armed myriads from all quar- 
ters, north, east, west, and south, and soon overran, 
with her victorious legions, Holland, Spain, Italy, the 
German priqcipalities on the Rhine, Switzerland, Prys- 

60 



474 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

sia, Austria, Poland, and the borders of Russia, She 
out-fought all her opponents, by the ascendancy of her 
military talents and tactics; she out-negotiated all other 
nations, by the depth and subdety of her dexterous di- 
plomacy; she domineered over all the earth by the 
weight and reach of her political intellect. France, 
springing upward, as a tiger from its thicket, and shak- 
ing irom otr her shoulders the shackles of a feeble, 
worn-out government, poured out her impetuous and 
unrestrained mind in political and military movements, 
that shook all Europe to its foundations, and struck a 
blow of destruction at the pillars of human society, from 
the horrible effects of which the whole fabric of the 
universe is, even now, reeling. 

By what magical charm or incantation, is the Con- 
gress of Vienna to fmd a remedy for the healing of all 
the complicated, radical evils imposed upon Europe, 
by five and twenty years of revolutionary cruelty and 
conflict? How is it to readjust the balance of power 
in that quarter of the globe ; how to restore harmony ; 
how to ensure the continuance of repose and peace, 
amidst the jarring elements of disorder and contention ? 

Is Russia to be the grand pacificator ? Is Alexander 
" the Deliverer" to perpetuate the blessings of peace 
over all the circumference of Christendom ? Russia 
has a home territory of nearly four millions of square 
miles ; is unassailable in flank and rear, and presents a 
most formidable frontier to the rest of Europe. More 
than five-sixths of her population inhabit her European 
dominions, which number nearly fifty millions of souls. 
She is also susceptible of indefinite augmentation, by 
the growth of wealth, people, and power, on account of 
her natural means, existing in the prodigious extent oi" 
her dominion, and the variety of its soil, climate, and 
productions. Its government uses every effort to im- 
prove the essential strength of the country, and to direct 
its force towards ulterior aggrandizement, by the diffu- 
sion of arts and sciences, by the liberal rewards given 
to talents and learning, whether found among its own 
people or contributed by foreigners. Her soil is capa- 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 475 

ble of containing, and supporting with all ease, at least 
four times the present number of its inhabitants. The 
people are brave, patient, hardy, and obedient, capable 
of enduring great fatigue, and of performing rapid and 
lonsf-continued marches. Her commanders are able, and 
Jier military tactics excellent ; her government is abso- 
lute, and can (as it uniformly \ias done, for the last hun- 
dred years,) pursue, steadily and perseveringly, the 
most long-sighted schemes of ambition and policy, alike 
by the force of arms, and the still more eflicient instru- 
ment of dexterous diplomacy. 

The improvement of her agriculture, and consequent 
increase of her population, are great and progressive. 
Her rivers and canals, in summer, and the sledge-roads 
on the snows, in winter, facilitate her internal communi- 
cation and commerce. Her present Emperor appears 
intent on improving the condition, both physical and 
moral, of his people, by emancipating the serfs, encou- 
raging agriculture and commerce, diffusing literature, 
art, and science, and, above all, by promoting Bible and 
Missionary Societies throughout the whole extent of his 
immense dominions. The recent exploits of Russia, in 
stemming the tide of revolutionary France, have won- 
derfully augmented her power and influence ; and facili- 
tated the means of her further extension and aggran- 
dizement; by developing the amount, and displaying 
the efficient management of her national resources, by 
disciplining her enormous strength, by inspiring her own 
people with self-confidence, by dispiriting and over- 
awingr her enemies. 

It is not in the nature of great power to set limits to 
its own progress. Peter the first said, " he had land 
enough, and only wanted water;" yet Catharine and 
Alexander have added a very large portion of land to 
the Russian empire since their imperial predecessor ut- 
tered this speech. Alexander himself has enlarged his 
dominion by the annexation of Finland, Moldavia, Wal- 
lachia, Bessarabia, a part of old Gallicia, lower Georgia, 
Circassia, and the kingdom of Poland. With one part 
of her territory she threatens Asia, and with the otlier 



476 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

alarms Europe. What is to prevent her extension into 
Germany, lier entire control of the northern powers, 
Sweden, Denmark, Prussia, and her possession of Con- 
stantinople ? Once mistress of the Bosphorus and the 
Dardanelles, in addition to her present empire, and what 
is to become of Austria, whnt of the whole European 
continent? — Nay, what of England's maritime superiori- 
ty? It has always been the aim of the Russian cabinet, 
from the reign of <he first Peter to that of Alexander, 
to render their country a great naval, as well as a great 
military power. The dominion of the Black Sea, of the 
Morea, of the Grecian Archipelago, of Constantinople, 
of some ports in the Mediterranean, might render Rus- 
sia a far more formidable rival on the ocean to England, 
than she has ever yet found in Europe. Lord Nelson 
used to say, "• that in encountering with French ships 
the best way was to run along side and board them : 
but with Russiaji ships to keep at a distance, and ma- 
noeuvre." And Russia has often evinced her jealousy 
of the maritime pre-eminence of Britain, particularly 
when she led the armed neutrality in 1781, under Ca- 
tharine, and in 1801, under Paul, and at the treaty of 
Tilsit, in 1807, under Alexander, when he and Napoleon 
stipulated, that Russia might take possession of Turkey 
in Europe, and pursue her conquests in Asia, at her own 
discretion ; — that she should assist France with her ma- 
rine for the conquest of Gibraltar; that the towns in Af- 
rica, as Tunis, Algiers, Tripoli, <fcc. should be taken 
possession of by France ; that no peace should be made 
with England, unless the island of Malta be ceded to 
France ; that Egypt be occupied by the French ; that 
no other than French, Russian, Spanish, and Italian ves- 
sels be permitted to navigate the Mediterranean; that 
no power be allowed to send merchant-ships to sea, un- 
less they have a certain number of ships oi' war. 

The British empire in India, also, has been long an 
object of desire to Russia; and Catharine, at one time, 
projected to march an army over land, to drive the 
English from the Indian Peninsula ; and, at a more re- 
<'ent period, Alexander and Napoleon agreed to accom- 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES, 477 

plish this scheme. It is supposed that Britain could not 
prevent the occupation of Constantinople by the Russian 
arms ; and that any one of her able generals, with a 
sufficient body of troops, might march strait to the 
Turkish capital, and win, and hold it, in spite of the 
world. No one imagines that the Turks, themselves, 
could defend their European empire against the undi- 
vided assaults of Russia, who might well alarm all the 
other powers of Europe for their independence, if she 
could lay her schemes for their subjugation, in her two 
capitals of Constantinople and Petersburgh. It is 
doubtful, if she be allowed a few years of peace to or- 
ganize her resources, to consolidate her strength, to 
develope her schemes, whether or not a coalition of the 
other European States could stop her progress towards 
universal dominion in that quarter of the world. At all 
events, the prodigious preponderance of Russia is not 
likely to restore the balance of power, nor to ensure 
the perpetuity of peace in Europe. See Sir Robert 
Wilson's " Sketches of the power of Russia," for facts 
proving the extent of her alarming strength ; although I 
by no means subscribe to his ultra whiggish inferences 
against England, who certainly means to survive his 
predictions. 

In glancing the eye over the present condition of the 
European powers, in connexion with a view of the re- 
sources of America, it is necessary to bear in mind the 
fetrongly marked difference between all the governments 
of the United States and those of other countries. In 
the United States they have consisted, from their com- 
mencement, of loritten constitutions, of certain fixed 
codes ; whereas, in other countries, they have grown 
up incidentally, from existing circumstances. In Hol- 
land and France, indeed, written constitutions have been 
lately adopted ; which appears to be not the least mo- 
mentous of the consequences imposed upon Europe by 
the French revolution ; namely, a tendency to infuse a 
greater spirit of democracy into the European govern- 
ments. It is asserted, likewise, that Prussia and Wir- 
tembergh, and some other of the continental powers, 



478 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

propose to form written constitutions, and admit the re- 
presentative system into their municipal institutions. 
Prior to the French revolution, all the governments of 
Europe were composed amidst the chapter of accidents, 
and time and chance were their nursing-mothers. When 
the government of imperial Rome, in the west, was sub- 
verted bj the barbarous tribes of Northern Asia and 
Northern Europe, the victorious nations every where 
cstaljlished an elective aristocracy, consisting of an elec- 
tive chief, and elective nobles. After a time the feudal 
system grew up into an hereditary monarchy and aris- 
tocracy; nevertheless, some traces of popular liberty 
still survived, although they were rendered faint and 
feeble in Spain, by the abolition of the cortes ; in France, 
by the depression of the tiers etat ; in Denmark and 
Sweden, by the usurpations of the sovereign over the 
privileges of the nobles ; in Italy and Germany, by the 
combined encroachments of both nobles and sovereign 
upon the mass of the people; while, in England, the 
gradual advance of the House of Commons, or demo- 
cratic branch of tlie government, eventually rendered it, 
at least, equal to, if not an overmatch for, the two other 
branches, consisting of an hereditary aristocracy, 'and an 
hereditary monarchy. Mr. Burke developes this sub- 
ject in his Regicide Pcace^ and labours to show that 
England is the weakest^ and revolutionary France the 
itroiigest, of all the European governments. 

Indeed, it may be taken as a general proposition, that 
the more f7'€e a government is, whatever be its form, 
whether a republic or a monarchy, the more it consults 
and provides for the individual, domestic, and national 
happiness of its own people, the less able it is to watch 
over, and influence the actions of other sovereigiities ; 
and so far it is deficient in its system of foreign policy. 
And this delect applie?;, not only to its diplomatic de- 
partment, but also to the mode of conducting its foreign 
wars ; in the management of which it never exhibits the 
secrecy, despatch, and eflective energy that characterize 
the military operations of more absolute governments. 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES, ^<JQ 

But peace and war are the great hinges upon which 
the safety and existence of nations turn. Diplomatic 
negotiations are the means of making peace or prevent- 
ing war ; and are, therefore, in themselves, and in their 
consequences, of more serious importance than any 
single events of war or peace. It is not too much to 
affirm that England has suffered and lost more by her 
unskilful diplomacy, during the ninety years which 
elapsed from the peace of Utrecht, in 1713, to the peace 
of Amiens, in 1801, including both those deplorable trea- 
iieSf than by all the battles she has fought for the last 
five centuries. Yet such is the construction of her in- 
ternal government; so well adapted is it to secure the 
personal liberty, promote the productive industry, and 
protect the individual enjoyment of her people ; and, at 
the same time, build up the intrinsic, permanent strength 
of the nation, that, notwithstanding the frequent blun- 
ders of her foreign policy, she has, in spite of her con- 
fined home territory, and small population, raised her- 
self to the rank of a first-rate power; and, in more than 
one period of her national history, has been the saviour 
and the arbitress of Europe. 

The French revolution, however, has materially shat- 
tered and deranged the political fabric of England; by 
compelling her to maintam a large and disproportionate 
military force ; by grievously augmenting the public ex- 
penditure and taxation ; and by adding seven hundred 
millions of pounds (more than three thousand millions 
of dollars,) to the national debt. That revolution has 
likewise torn up from their foundations all the govern- 
ments on the European continent. Into what forms of 
civil polity, whether into a preponderance of democracy, 
or aristocracy, or monarchy, the states of Europe will, 
eventually, subside, when the more immediate conse- 
quences of the French revolution shall have produced 
their full effect, is not given to human wisdom to fore- 
see. At present, the representative system, which is the 
onlt/ certain and permanent basis of national hberty, pre- 
vails to a small extent, and in different degrees, in Eu- 
rope : for example, in England, Holland, France, and 



489 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Sweden, the executive and nobles are hereditary, and 
the popular representatives elected ; while in Switzer- 
land, the executive and both branches of the legislature 
are elective. The system of representation, hitherto, 
has gained no effectual entrance into Spain, or Portugal, 
or Italy, or 'Germany, or Russia, containing, altogether^ 
a population of one hundred and forty-five millions 
of souls. 

There seems, however, among some of the nations of 
continental Europe, a desire to imitate the Constitution 
of England, in their own municipal Institutions. Indeed 
it is no new thing for continental Europeans to admire 
and praise the fabric of British poHty ; for instance, M. 
Montesquieu has devoted the whole of the sixth chapter 
of the eleventh book of his Esprit cics Loix^ to an inves-- 
tigation of, and eulogium on, the English Constitution ; 
and Voltaire, in his letters on the English nation, chap. 
21, 22, follows the same track; and M. Gourville also, 
expresses similar sentiments, as may be seen in Sir Wil- 
liam Temple's Memoirs. To these may be added the 
decisive testimony of the duke de la Rochefaucault, in 
the Supplement to his Reflections ; and the incidental 
praises of many of the best French historians, from the 
Sieur de Comines to father Daniel. Frederic the Se- 
cond of Prussia, likewise, has shoAvn his acquaintance 
with, and his approbation of, the English Constitution, 
in his Memoirs of the House of Brandenburgh. But 
the fullest and ablest account of the British polity is 

fiven by De Lolme, who says expressly, that it com- 
ines the three essentials of good government, namely, 
" the most certain protection, the exaction of the least 
sacrifices, and the capacity of progressive improvement." 
Since De Lolme wrote, perhaps the weight of taxation, 
and amount of the national debt in England, may incline 
sober persons to modify the second member of his lau- 
datory sentence. M. Fouche, in his celebrated letter to 
the Duke oi" Wellington, after the battle of Waterloo, 
says, "that the establishment in France, of a Constitu- 
tion similar to that of England, would be a sufficient 
recompense to her, for all the horrors of the revolution ; 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



^t^ri 



and that Frenchmen do not desire more, nor will they 
be contented with less freedom, than the British nation 
enjoys." 

ft may be remarked, that some of the wisest men of 
all antiquity, have declared their conviction, that a due 
blending together of monarchy, aristocracy, and demo- 
cracy, in one political system, would be the best form 
of government, if it could ever be realized. Plato, in 
his YloAiriico^j says, ^' Mova^^ia rv^^inroi gv y^ocy^fxoia-iv , ou? 
vofA.ovg Aiyof^iv^ a^Kxrn -ko^^twv^'' A monarchy, which is kept 
Avithin the limits prescribed by the laws, is the best form 
of all. In his fragments of a Treatise upon a Republic, 
Cicero says, " Statuo esse optiraam constitutam rempubli- 
cam, qua3 ex tribus generibus illis, regaii, optimo, et po- 
pulari, confusa modice." I determine that to be the 
best constructed commonwealth, which is temperately 
compounded of the three different forms of government, 
the royal, the aristocratic, and democratic. Tacitus, in 
the fourth book of his Annals, says, " Cunctas nationes, 
et urbes, populus, aut primores, aiit singuli regunt ; de- 
lecta ex his, et constituta reipublicse forma, laudari faci- 
lius = quam evenire ; vel, si evenit, baud diuturna esse 
potest;" all nations and cities are governed, either by 
the people at large, or the leading men of the commu- 
nity, or a single sovereign ; the frame of a commonwealth, 
constructed out of all these forms of government, it is 
more easy to praise than to establish ; and if ever esta- 
blished, it cannot possibly be lasting. Polybiiis, in the 
sixth book of his History, says " A);Aov yo^^, ug oc^nrryiv /xiv 
yjytinav TIoAitum, tjjv ix, TToivrcov rav £<^£^£va)v t^icofA^xruv cvviffru- 

CaV TOUTOU ycCQ^ TOU fAi^OVg OU AoycO jtAOVOV OtAA' i^yw TTit^XV £<A»J- 

(P»f/,iv' AvKov^yov (TV(rry}(To(,vrog tt^cotov iiMrx tov t^ottov to Aonti' 
^aif/>oviuv noA<T£Ujuot," for it is evident that is to be consi- 
dered the best form of government, which is constituted 
from all these three simple forms, (of democracy, aris- 
tocracy, and monarchy,) alreatly enumerated; and of 
(his position, we have had proof, not in theory only, but 
in fact; Lycurgus having established the first model of 
ihis threefold constitution of government, in the system 
of polity which he framed for the Lacedemonians. 

61 



4g2 RESOURCES OF TIIE UMTED STATES. 

It is to be remembered, however, that these sentiments 
of the great writers of antiquity, and the praises be- 
stowed upon the Enghsh Constitution by continental 
Europeans, were all pronounced before the United 
States had given to the world an example, (yet unfol- 
lowed,) of a whole people meeting, by delegates, in a 
national convention, and deliberately framing for them- 
selves a system of government, purely representative^ 
altogether elective; as well in the executive, as in both 
the branches of the legislature. And above all, it is to 
be remembered, that the form of government, and the 
legal code of every country, are then most natural, and 
most likely to last, when they are accommodated to the 
habits and disposition of the people among whom they 
arc established. The individual materials of national 
strength, can never be fully united unless the will and 
inclination of the people, be combined in favour of the 
government. The union of this inclination and will, 
makes emphatically the state, or body politic. Laws 
themselves, in general, are nothing more than the ap- 
plication of human reason and experience to the practi- 
cal concerns of social life; and the laws, civil and poli- 
tical, of any particular country, are only the practical 
application of reason and experience to the existing in- 
terests of that particular country. Indeed, they are, 
generally, so exactly fitted to the people, among whom 
they grow up, that it scarcely ever happens that the 
laws of one nation can be made to suit the habits and 
dispositions of another community; whence the extreme 
folly of attempting to introduce, suddenly^ new laws and 
a neAV government into any country. 

The Americans^ who framed a form of representative 
government, towards the close of the eighteenth cen- 
tury, thitherto unparalleled in the history of the world, 
and, as yet, unimitated by other nations, were the de- 
scendants of men, who had, in preceding ages, fled from 
reliij^ious persecution and civil oppression in England, 
and sought a refuge from the intolerance of the old 
"World in the waste and wilderness of the regions of the 
west. These men cherished an hereditary horror ot' 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 483 

single sovereignty, of feudal aristocracy, of ecclesiastical 
dominion ; and, therefore, in their constitutions, whether 
of the separate or of the United States, abolished all 
the vestiges of royalty, swept away every ensign of no- 
bility, placed every religious denomination upon the 
same footing, made every branch of their government 
elective and popular, provided for the personal, domes- 
tic, and social liberty of all their citizens, and laid the 
foundations of their whole civil polity, broad and deep, 
in the soil of national freedom. 

The French revolution having, in its consequences, 
abolished the feudal system on the European continent, 
the governments in Europe, henceforth, will be either 
military, or commercial, or both. France, Prussia, 
Austria, and Russia lean to the military, while Britain 
and the United Netherlands support the commercial 
.system. And, in proportion as the one or the other 
predominates, will the nations be free and prosperous, 
or enslaved and miserable. In their extremes, they are 
incompatible ; trade cannot flourish, it cannot live under 
the withering blasts of a military government ; nor can 
a military tyranny exist under the quickening influence 
of the commercial system. The prevalence of mercan- 
tile enterprise implies great individual liberty, extensive 
national credit, abundant wealth, and progressive im- 
provement. The military system makes the govern- 
ment all, and the people nothing ; gives to the single 
despot the property, person, industry, mind, will, and 
life of all his slaves, to do with them as he lists, for the 
forwarding his own views of external conquest, internal 
aggrandizement, sensual sloth, and arbitrary caprice. 

If the military power preponderates, the people are 
crushed beneath the weight of their fetters ; and igno- 
rance, idleness, and poverty convert the finest climate 
and most fertile soil into a desert waste. If the commer- 
cial spirit predominates, the people are free, and indus- 
try, skill, and wealth create a garden of Eden out of the 
most churlish soil, and beneath the most ungenial sky. 
But, in order to ensure at once the individual liberty of 
the people, and the personal strength of the government, 



484 RE.^OURCES OF THE UMTED STATES. 

it is necessary to combine, in due proportions, the military 
and mercantile systems. Holland was merely commer- 
cial ; lier citizens were, individually, free, enterprising, 
and opulent; but, as a nation., she soon fell into decay, 
and, eventually, into extinction, owing to the weakness 
of her government, which was unable to resist the pres- 
sure of foreign Avar from Avithout, combined with the 
turbulence ol" faction within the bowels of the state. 
Revolutionary France was merely military ; her people 
were ground doAvn to the dust beneath the burden oi 
their unmitigated bondage ; but her government, abso- 
lute in its dominion over its own subjects, was porten- 
tous, and terrible in power to other nations; against 
whom it could, at will, direct all the physical and intel- 
lectual resources of its own territory, for the purpose of 
extending the ravages of tyranny over a larger portion 
of the earth. Britain unites military power with com- 
mercial influence in her system of government; whence 
her people are, individually, free, industrious, enterpris- 
ing, intelligent, and wealthy ; and her government has 
sufficient permanency of strength to protect its own 
subjects from injury, to punish the aggressions of other 
nations, to guard the weaker powers from wrong, to 
awe the mightier sovereignties into justice and modera- 
tion; to diffuse the blessings of civil and religious liberty 
over the most distant regions of the habitable globe. 
It was, under Providence, owing to her fortitude, per- 
severance, and public spirit, during twenty-five years of 
unexampled Avarfare, that continental Europe Avas, at 
length, rescued from the thraldom of revolutionary 
France. 

There is one objection to the administration of the 
British government, which requires a more minute no- 
tice. It is urged, as a common topic of reproach, both 
in England and in these United States, that the English 
government does not employ a suflicient portion of talent 
in its service. This complaint is natural in the mouths 
of the opposition in Britain, and means nothing more, 
than that if 'heir party Avere in poAver, the government 
would be very wisely administered; a circumstance, 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 435 

which must be left to the votes of the people of Eng- 
land, when they elect their kinghts and burgesses to 
represent them in the House of Commons. This 
charge, also, is quite natural in the English reformers^ 
who clamour, incessantly, about the dulness and igno- 
rance, as well as the corruption and profligacy of the 
administration ; all which is a mere etfusion of disap- 
pointed malignity and rage, because the talent, skill, 
and strength of the government, render all their efforts to 
destroy the country vain and ineffectual. Such language 
is still more natural in the United States, because the 
Americans do not often witness any very bright speci- 
mens of English intellect, either in the private citizens, 
who come out here, or in the public officers, who re- 
present their government. And this country has wit- 
nessed the egregious mismanagement of Britain in her 
mode of conducting both the revolutionary and the late 
war; and still continues to see the marvellous raal-ad- 
ministration of her North American colonies, which ap- 
pear to be governed by the mother country, for the 
express purpose of rendering them an easy prey to the 
United States, whenever our government shall enter 
into a national, instead of a party, war against England. 
It is not, indeed, easy to defend the British govern- 
ment against the charge of general incapacity in its 
foreign policy, and in its colonial administration, parti- 
cularly in the Canadas, where they never, by any acci- 
dent, employ a statesman in any one of their public of- 
fices, civil, legal, or military. This apparently strange 
conduct may be, however, susceptible of some explana- 
tion. It is admitted, I believe, on all hands, that there 
exists a sufficient quantity of talent of every various 
gradation in Britain ; but the objection is, that it is not 
employed in the service of government, which, there- 
fore, labours under an habitual, permanent imbecility. 
This inference is incorrect in itself, and founded on er- 
roneous premises. For it rests on the assumption, that 
all the great talent of a country ought to be employed 
in the guidance of its government. But, if this were 
ever to take place in any nation, it would, of itself, en- 



4gti RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

sure a perpetuity of resistless despotism ; because, as 
power has always a natural and necessary tendency to 
increase in the hands of its holders, all the existing 

freat talent combined together would, of course, bear 
own into hopeless subjection, the general mass of folly, 
ignorance, and weakness, that is always floating in every 
community. 

In every free country great talent is necessary to ad- 
minister the government with wisdom, energy, and ef- 
fect ; and great talent is also necessary to constitute a 
formidable opposition to the existing administration of 
government, in order to prevent it from degenerating 
into an arbitrary and illegal use of its power, and to 
produce a most salutary exercise of the understanding 
in the reciprocal collision of mighty intellects; great 
talent is likewise necessary to carry on the learned pro- 
fessions of divinity, physic, and law, and the more active 
occupations of the army and navy, to enlarge the 
boundaries of literature and science, to improve the 
arts, to beautify, adorn, and strengthen the interior of 
the country, so that it might present a vast aggregate 
amount of intelligence, industry, wealth, population, 
physical and moral strength, for the government to 
wield, as an offensive and defensive weapon, with 
which to control other nations, to secure its own inde- 
pendence, to maintain its progression in power, to aug- 
ment its resources, to consolidate its aggrandizement. 

It is not disputed, that a high bounty is perpetually 
offered for the exercise of the greatest talents in general 
science, letters, and arts, both speculative and practical, 
by the vast patronage, public and private, of wealth and 
honour, in Britain ; and that this demand, in conse- 
quence, has produced the most splendid and successful 
effusions of genius and knowledge, in all these various 
departments of intellectual pursuit. To those who are 
acquainted with the past and present situation of the 
British empire, no proof is necessary to show, that there 
never was a period of its history, in which so much ta- 
lent was employed in all the departments of service and 
pursuit, whether private or public, as is now put into 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 487 

eonstant requisition ! And, as to the government itself, in 
the guidance of which so great a deficiency of wisdom 
is supposed always to exist; it is simply impossible to 
prevent a very large proportion of the talent and informa- 
tion of the country, from being constantly employed in 
carrying on the administration of so extensive and com- 
plicated a system of policy as that of England, which 
unites great energy of action in itself, with an ample ex- 
tent of personal liberty to its people. A vast amount of 
intelligence, skill, experience, discretion, and wisdom, is 
required, to give direction to her immense naval and 
mihtary departments ; to marshal and guide her parlia- 
mentary troops to watch over, and guard the political 
well-being of her established national church; to ma- 
nage and conciliate the great landed, moneyed, manufac- 
turing, and commercial interests of the empire ; to con- 
tend, both in and out of the Senate, with an incessant and 
formidable opposition, of wealth, rank, influence, talent, 
and learning, employed in declaiming, writing, and act- 
ing against all its measures, whether right or wrong, 
from the most important, down to the least significant of 
its transactions. 

In examining the position, that Britain never employs 
a sufficient quantity of talent in the administration of her 
government, it may be remarked, that it is easier to 
guide the movements of a machine already made, and 
the uses of which are known, than to make the machine 
and set it in motion. A well-established government, 
like that of England, does not require all the highest 
talents of the country to be crowded into the administra- 
tion. Having grown up in the habits, affections, and 
feelings of the people, its business can be regulated, and 
energetically carried on, by the superintending genius 
of a few great men, to guide its primary movements ; 
and by men of decent, respectable talents, to execute its 
subordinate functions. The residue of its greatest and 
most commanding talents would be employed to the 
best advantage, in diffusing the lights of science, art, 
and literature, over the whole community. A v^idc field 
for the production and display of great talent is opened 



488 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

in England, bj always calling a respectable portion oi 
high intellect into the service of the government ; by oc- 
casionally raising up powerful minds, from the middle, 
and lower orders of the people, to the great offices of 
state, and thus perpetually fanning the flame of honour- 
able competition ; and by encouraging the exertions of 
genius in every various department of scientific and lite- 
rary pursuit, by rewards and honours. Perseverance 
in large and liberal study, and a regular adherence, 
through successive ages, to the great fixed principles of 
moral and political science, have raised and maintained 
the national spirit, and rendered its government, laws, 
intelligence, agriculture, manufactures, commerce, and 
marine, at once the envy and admiration of the surround- 
ing world. The exhibitions of great talents always fol- 
low the demand for their display; and no effectual 
bounty ca?i be oifcred for their general appearance, ex- 
cept in difree country, whose civil and military institu- 
tions are on a large and magnificent scale, holding out 
the only adequate incitements of wealth, influence, ho- 
nour, and power, for tlicir full developement. 

It is a question of great importance for the statesman 
to decide, how far the letting loose all the talents of a 
community, would unsettle; every thing, and fix nothing ? 
Certain land-marks, and boundaries of authority and 
liabit, are necessary to govern men. If the judiciary. 
for example, were not by the veneration attached to 
their high office, to restrain the license of tlie bar, no 
business could be transacted in a court of justice ; but 
all the time necessary for the trial and determination of 
legal suits, Avould be consumed in the clashing of judi- 
cial with forensic intellect. And the same disorder 
would prevail, under similar circumstances, throughout 
all the departments of a goveiTimcnt. Whence, it ajv 
pears both wise and necessary to establish habits of im- 
plicit obedience to authority, to call a due portion o\ 
high talent into the administration, and to rewaid, by 
public applause and patronage, the exertions of genius 
and the display of knowledge, in all the various branches 
of intellectual inquiry. The two only aristocracies ol 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 439 

Iiuman nature, tale7ii and property must govern every 
country, or it will infallibly be destroyed, either by 
foreign conquest or domestic tyranny. But talent is 
merely personal and fleeting, while property is fixed 
and permanent, accumulating through successive gene- 
rations, and consequently gives a poise and stability to 
the community. 

If talent alone have sway, it produces a perpe- 
tual vibration of society from scheme to scheme, by 
its clashing interests and discordant colhsions. But 
property, whether it belongs to a wise or a weak posses- 
sor, is in its nature stable ; is a balance-wheel, which 
keeps the main-spring of talent from dashing the machi- 
nery of society to pieces ; and in old well-established 
governments, the weight of property, by opposing the 
too rapid rise of talent, renders the talent which ulti- 
mately rises, more mature, more powerful to combinll 
the joint forces of experience, discretion, wisdom, and 
foresight, for the public service ; and thus ensures a 
continual succession of able, and well-trained men, in all 
the great departments of State. In France, the revolu- 
tionary politicians did actually destroy the influence of 
property, and give to talent an undivided sway. What 
was the consequence.'^ — an incessant hurrying of the 
whole community from one scheme of theoretic insanity 
to another; from one set of tyrants to another; until a 
military despotism fixed all the nation in the frost of 
universal bondage. 

It requires a whole life of labour and wisdom, directed 
to the prosecution of mental and moral improvement, to 
build up the exalted character of a single individual ; 
what, then, is necessary, in order to construct the per- 
manent greatness, and magnificent exaltation of a whole 
community.'' Mr. Burke, after long and profound re- 
flection upon the different forms of government, both 
ancient and modern, concluded, that nothing short of 
the hereditary transmission of property, and civil polity, 
through a long series of ages, is adequate to rear a na- 
tion into extensive and durable power. And yet Rome, 
during the space of eight hundred years, made herself 

62 



490 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

absolute mistress of the greater part of the then known 
world, without the aid, either of an hereditary civil poli- 
ty, or an hereditary transmission of property. Undoubt- 
edly, the number of great discoveries, or improvements, 
which have been suddenly made, in any branch of know- 
ledge, is extremely small. For example, the greatest 
discovery in the science of political economy, the balan- 
cing system^ has been gradually unfolded by the obser- 
vation and experience of several centuries. That vast 
theory of political expediency regulates the mutual ac- 
tions of contiguous nations ; subjects each to the influ- 
ence of others, however remote ; connects all together 
by one common principle; regulates the movements ot' 
the whole ; and maintains the order of the stupendous, 
complicated system of modern Christendom. 

In the sixteenth century, the balancing system pre- 
served Europe from subjugation to the Emperor Charles 
the Fifth ; in the seventeenth century it rescued Europe 
from the grasp of French dominion, under Louis the 
Fourteenth ; in the nineteenth century it broke the 
chains of slavery, which Napoleon Buonaparte was cast- 
ing over the whole civilized world; and ere the close of 
this same century, probably, all its efforts will be want- 
ed to stop the progress of Russia towards universal su- 
premacy. 

In a community where the legislature is composed of 
the effective aristocracy of the country ; that is to say, 
of the best birth, talent, wealth, and character of the 
country ; where the officers of the government sit in 
the representative assembly ; and where large and libe- 
ral salaries are allowed to the public servants — there 
must always be a great portion of intelligence in the 
administration; and the affairs and destinies of the coun- 
try, whether domestic or foreign, are but little liable to 
be influenced or deranged by the occurrence of acci- 
dental, unlbreseen, or sudden events. For instance, the 
death of a civil or military chief, who had supported the 
greatness of the state by the vigour and wisdom of his 
councils, or by the glory of his arms, is seldom, if ever, 
the cause of great change, either in the positive strength 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



49) 



or the relative importance of such a country. Four of 
the greatest men, in their respective departments, whotn 
England ever produced, all died within the space of two 
years ; these illustrious men were Lord Nelson, Mr. 
Pitt, Mr. Fox, and Lord Thurlow ; nevertheless, the 
British empire, although deprived of the stupendous 
talents, the vast experience, the political wisdom, the 
daring and felicitous heroism of these exalted charac- 
ters, bore herself steadily onward, and grappling, single- 
handed, with a whole world in arms against her, finally 
redeemed all Europe from bondage, and placed herself 
upon the pinnacle of national glory. 

Such important and salutary results can only occur 
in representative governments ; they can never be pro- 
duced either in a single despotism or in an unbalanced 
democracy; both of which systems depend upon the 
temporary exaltation of single individuals, for their own 
momentary ascendency. Neither of these forms of go- 
vernment provides for the training up of great men for 
the public service, in any regular succession. The truth 
of this position is exemplified in the whole history of 
the Asiatic despotisms; the different kingdoms of which 
alternately rise into influence over, or sink into depend- 
ence upon, their neighbours, as they happen to be go- 
verned by an able, active, and warlike, or a weak, indo- 
lent, and dastardly monarch. Nay, almost within our 
own remembrance, Frederic the Second of Prussia, by 
the exertions of his single political and military talents, 
raised his kingdom from a very Inferior rank, to that of 
a first-rate European power. But, after his death, his 
successors, not possessing his genius or activity, were 
first conquered and stripped of half their dominions, by 
revolutionary France, and then leaned upon Russia for 
the preservation of the miserable remnant of their na- 
tional existence. In ancient story the democracy of 
Thebes was great and flourishing, and domineered over 
all Greece, as long as Pelopidas and Epaminondas led 
her armies, and guided her councils ; but as soon as 
these two great men died, Thebes fell rapidly into the 
degradation of national insignificance and contempt. 



^92 fiESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Athens, whenever an able statesman was in office, was 
an overmatch for all the other Grecian republics ; this 
was particularly shown, during the administration of 
Pisistratus, and Pericles ; but whenever her more igno- 
rant and noisy demagogues took the lead, she invariably 
bowed her head beneath tiie military ascendency of her 
aristocratic rival, Laceda?mon. As long as Rome re- 
mained a military aristocracy, she produced a regular 
succession of great statesmen and warriors, and went on 
steadily for several centuries, conquering the whole 
world. But as soon as she became an unbalanced de- 
mocracy, she fell into internal anarchy and weakness, 
sunk into single military despotism ; and was finally 
burned up, both in her eastern and western thrones, by 
the victorious watchfires of the Asiatic Saracens and 
Turks, and of the European barbarians of the north. 
Nay, revolutionary France, herself, fell in the fall of 
her military tyrant. 

But in extensive, and well-balanced communities, 
which unite strength in the government with liberty in 
the people, great men arc continually rising up amidst 
the existing exigencies ; they are disciplined to excel- 
lence in particular schools, whether civil or military ; 
they regularly train up able and adequate successors for 
themselves, when they shall retire from public conilict, 
into the arms of death, or of quiescent age ; they are 
incessantly called forth by the pressing emergencies of 
national affairs. 

Lord Castlereagh had from his earliest youth exhibit- 
ed the marks of o-ieat talent, the eiforts of which he 
always seconded by habitual industry and application; 
but he actually astonished all his friends, and quite con- 
founded all his enemies, by the transcendent mind which 
he displayed in those political negotiations, tliat led to 
the deliverance of Eui ope from the extreme degradation 
of universal bondage. Jn the year 1812, he concluded 
a convention with Sweden, at a time when it was gene- 
rally supposed that the Crown Prince Bernadotte was 
in close league with Buonaparte, for the destruction of 
Russia. He was repeatedly warned of his danger in 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 493 

the House of Commons ; his answer was, that he was 
well aware of the difficulty and delicacy of such a nego- 
tiation ; but that, in the existing crisis of Europe, and of 
the world, he was wiUing to run all the hazard, and take 
upon himself all the responsibility, of that perilous trans- 
action. In the year 1814, he went over to Chatillon, 
in France, \vliere he found the allied powers of Russia, 
Austria, and Prussia, dispirited by five successive defeats, 
which their armies had experienced, and inclined to con- 
clude a peace with Buonaparte. But Lord Castlereagh 
again took upon himself the enormous responsibility of 
refusing to negotiate, on the part of England, until the 
French revolutionary system was destroyed, by the de- 
thronement of Napoleon, and the restoration of the 
Bourbons. 

. What a responsibility was this ! If Buonaparte had 
succeeded in rousing the spirit of the French people, 
and in levying armies sufficiently numerous to enable 
him to overwhelm the allied squadrons, Castlereagh^s 
name would have been handed down to everlasting exe- 
cration, as the destroyer of Europe, by his own obsti- 
nacy and short-sightedness. If the allies had rejected 
his advice, and concluded a separate peace with Napo- 
leon, Castlereagh would have been stigmatized as the 
destroyer of England, by again arming all the millions 
of the European continent, in a fresh coalition, and with 
increased rancour, against her alone. But, as his great 
mind peered above the intellects of the allied statesmen, 
he distinctly saw, that perseverance and daring alone, 
were wanting to crown the exertions of humanity with 
success, and redeem the world from the pressure of mi- 
litary despotism; and as the allies followed his counsel 
to victory, to the capture of Paris, the overthrow of Na- 
poleon, and the reinstating of the Bourbons on the throne 
of their ancestors, Lord Castlereagh deserves the most 
honourable appellation of the pacificator of Europe, 
the deliverer of Enofland. 

The main object of every country should be, to remove 
all political impediments and checks to the rising of such 



494 RLSOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

men into the high public stations, tor wliicli their natu- 
ral faculties and acquired inforuiation so peculiarly tit 
them. Under a free representative government, whose 
national institutions and departments of public service, 
both civil and military, are extensive and magnificent, 
the restrictions upon the rise of real merit are much 
fewer, and less pernicious than under a single despotism, 
or an unbalanced democracy; and the road to legiti- 
mate preferment, is extended to a much wider circle. 
Whence, in those countries, much less consequence may 
be attached to the existence, or loss of any particular 
great man; because the appearance of those illustrious 
characters, in whose hands the national destinies are 
placed, is not regulated by accident; but is provided for 
in regular succession, from age to age, by the internal or- 
ganization, and ordinary administration of government:. 
Thus, Chatham was reproduced in Pitt, and Pitt reap- 
pears in Castlereagh and Canning. Mr. Brougham, in 
his " Colonial Policy," discusses this subject at length, 
and with vast ability. 

These observations, respecting the best means of 
training up, and preparing a regular succession of great 
men for the public service of the nation, might be illus- 
trated by an analysis of the internal, or home govern- 
ment of England; whose system oi' foreign policy, how- 
ever, as it consists in the prosecution of external war- 
fare, in theordinary transactions of diplomacy with other 
nations, and in tiie extraordinary negotiations for peace 
with her enemies, is, in general, very defective, and ought 
to be improved. Her mode of conducting the war in 
Spain, France, and Flanders, Irom the year 1808 to 
1815, and her negotiations for the peace of Europe, in 
1811 and 1815, are magnificent exceptions to the usual 
imbecilitv and errors of her foreign policy. But not- 
withstanding all her imperfections and difliculties, there 
is yet sufficient ground to expect that Britain will be 
able to weather the storm, and again lift her head on 
liigh, above the waves of jevolutionary violence and 
foreiarn assault, that beat with unceasino: tide asrainst all 
hcj- most venerable establishments. 



RESOURCES OF THE LfNITED STATES. 495 

This expectation is founded on the prevalence of 
pure rehgion and sound morals, throughout her do- 
minions; her well-balanced government, her free and 
equal laws, her pure and unstained administration of 
justice, her lofty and unyielding spirit, her talents, learn- 
ing, and intelligence, and the industry, enterprise, and 
perseverance of her people. All these, we trust, under 
the blessing of Providence, will enable her to stand 
erect and unmoved, in spite of the pressure of her 
finances, the deficiency of her revenue, the vast amount 
of her public expenditure, the diminution of her com- 
merce, the rage of her reformers, the defects of her 
foreign policy, as well in diplomacy as in war, the ha- 
tred and intrigues of France, the fear and jealousy of 
the United Netherlands, the preponderance of Russia, 
and the growing power and deadly enmity of the United 
States. While Britain remains pre-eminent, the liber- 
ties of Europe are safe; when she falls, the light, moral 
and intellectual, of that portion of the earth, will be 
extinguished in Egyptian darkness. As Britain, how- 
ever, cannot enlarge her own home territory, nor con- 
tend with Russia on the land, it is her imperative duty 
to increase her maritime resources, by adding the Gre- 
cian Isles, Cuba, tlia Isthmus of Darien, and the junction 
of the Atlantic and Pacific, to her empire, in order to 
place herself in so commanding a situation, as to be able 
to save Europe once more, in the event of Russia's 
hereafter menacing that quarter with subjugation, as 
revolutionary France has so recently done. 

The recent extinction of lineal royalty in Britain is, 
indeed, an awful dispensation to an hereditary monar- 
chy. But there never went by an hour in the tide of 
time, when the national destinies of twenty millions of a 
free and enlightened people hung suspended upon the 
life or death of any individual, however exalted in rank, 
talent, or virtue. This calamitous event — the untimely 
death of a lovely woman, an empire's pride and hope, 
has called forth the clamorous joy of many of our more 
ardent politicians, as portendinc^ the speedy dissolution 
of the British government ; which, however, will, most 



49t> RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

probably, survive its present, as it has outlived many 
generations of its past, enemies. 

The result of ail this is, that it is the duty of every 
prudent government, while it acknowledges the supre- 
macy of the Governor among the nations, in whose 
hands are the issues of life and death, to avail itself 
of all the means in its power, to confirm and strengthen 
the prosperity of the people committed to its charge. 
Wherefore, considering the precarious condition of 
Europe, its germinant and springing seeds of disor- 
der, the little probability of readjusting its balance of 
power, or of preserving its peace for any considerable 
length of time, the difficulty of preventing the United 
States from being embroiled in the general conflict, the 
rapid growth of the wealth, population, and power, the 
continual enlargement of their territories, and the con- 
stant multiphcation of new States, our general govern- 
ment ought, immediately, to lay the foundation, broad 
and deep, of a solid system of internal finance ; that it 
might have the command of an ample and a growing 
revenue, arising out of the territorial resources of the 
country, for the purposes of admininistering the home 
department liberally and effectively ; of conducting its 
foreign policy vigorously and magnificently ; of promot- 
ing the progress of letters and science, and every spe- 
cies of internal improvement ; of training up, in regular 
succession, able men for the public service, and reward- 
ing their labours splendidly ; of establishing the national 
credit on an imperishable basis, so as to be able to raise 
any amount of money by voluntary loans, in the event 
of any sudden emergency, as the breaking out of war, 
or of a long-continued demand, in case of a protracted 
conflict for sovereignty, or aggrandizement, or exist- 
ence. 

The President seems to be aware of the necessity of 
giving to the United States all possible means of offen- 
sive and defensive strength, when, in his Message to 
Congress, on the 2d of December, 1817, he states the 
public credit to be at an extraordinary elevation; the pre- 
parations for defence, in future wars, to be advancing 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES* ^^J 

under a well-digested system ; the general government 
to be daily gaining strength 5 local jealousies to be ra- 
pidly yielding to more generous, enlarged, and en- 
lightened views of national policy ; the militia of the 
several States to amount to eight hundred thousand 
men, infantry, artillery, and cavalry, great part of which 
is already armed, and measures are taken to arm the 
whole, and Congress is recommeYided to improve its 
organization and discipline. The Message also states, 
that the regular army amounts nearly to the number 
required by law, and is stationed along the Atlantic and 
inland frontiers ; that of the naval force strong squad- 
rons are maintained in the Mediterranean, and in the 
Gulf of Mexico; that by lands recently purchased from 
the Indians, bordering on Lake Erie, and from the 
Cherokees, the United States will be enabled to extend 
their settlements from the inhabited parts of the State 
of Ohio, along Lake Erie, into the Michigan Territory, 
and to connect their settlements, by degrees, through 
the State of Indiana and the Illinois Territory, to that 
of Missouri ; and a similar advantageous efiect will soon 
be produced to the south, through the whole extent of 
the States and Territory which border on the waters that 
empty themselves into the Mississippi and the Mobile ; 
thus affording security to our inland frontiers ; and a 
strong barrier, consisting of our own people, planted on 
the lakes, the Mississippi, and the Mobile, with the pro- 
tection of a few regular troops, effectually to curb all 
Indian hostility. A few great fortifications along the 
coasts, and at some points in the interior connected 
with it, will ensure the safety of our towns, and the 
commerce of our great rivers, from the Bay of Fundy 
to the Mississippi. From all this will spring a rapid 
augmentation in the value of all public lands, and emi- 
grations be facilitated to the remotest parts of the 
Union. Several new States have been created to the 
west and south, and territorial governments organized 
over every place where there is vacant land for sale ; 
whence an immense increase of our population is to be 

63 



jJ9S resoltxes of the united states. 

expected, at once augmenting the wealth and strength 
of the whole country. 

But all these bright prospects are clouded by Mr. 
Monroe's saying, at the close of his Message, that the 
revenue arising from imports and tonnage, and from the 
sale of public lands, will be adequate to support the civil 
government, the present military and naval establish- 
ments, inchiding the annual augmentation of the navy; 
and provide for the payment of the interest on the na- 
tional debt, and its gradual extinction, without the aid of 
internal taxes j wherefore he recommends Congress to 
repeal them. Now it is sinning against all past expe- 
rience, and all the most approved principles of political 
philosophy, to endeavour to carry on a government 
without any system of internal taxation in time of peace ; 
and when war breaks out, ihcn^ to begin to tax, when the 
diminution of revenue and the increasing necessities of 
the people peculiarly indispose, and disable them from 
bearing the imposition of new bmdens ; whereas inter- 
nal taxes, laid during peace, and so adjusted as to in- 
crease in productiveness with the national growtli in po- 
pulation and wealth, will easily admit of such a gradual 
augmentation in time of war, as not to press too heavily 
on the community, and at the same time most materially 
to strengthen and establish the public credit; which, 
ahnc^ can enable a government to call out and effectual- 
ly wield the resources of the country, so as to secure its 
permanent prosperity, power, and reputation. 

As soon as Congress met in December, 1817, they 
passed a bill through both houses, for the repeal o{ i\\Q 
internal duties^ which the President immediately signed; 
and the law now is, that the United States government 
have no internal revenue. And yet, probably, the recent 
occupation of Amelia Island by our Americr.n troops, 
under the provisions of the secret act of Congress, passed 
in 1811, but not published till December, 1817, will, 
ere long, call for a large appropriation of the public 
money. Is Cuba to follow the fate of Amelia; and are 
our Inrjd limits to be stretched beyond the horizon of 
Mexico ? 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES- 499 

P. S. Since the foregoing sheets were printed, the 
Treasury documents for 1817 have been received; from 
them the following summary is extracted : — 

TREASURY DEPARTMENT, 

\Q>th January^ 1818. 
SIR, 

I have the honour to transmit a statement of the 
exports of the United States, during the year ending 
the 30th September, 1817, amounting, in value, on 
articles 

Of domestic produce or manufacture, to $68,313,500 
Of foreign produce or manufacture, to 19,358,069 

^87,671,569 

Which articles appear to have been exported to the fol- 
lowing countries, viz. 

Domestic, Foreigtu 
To the northern countries of 

Europe, !S3,828,563 2,790,408 

To the dominions of the Nether- 
lands, 3,397,775 2,387,543 

Do. of Great Britain, 41,431,168 2,037,074 

Do. of France, 9,717,423 2,717,395 

Do. of Spain, 4,530,156 3,893,780 

Do. of Portugal, .... 1,501,237 333,586 

All other, 3,907,178 5,198,283 

$68,313,500 19,358,069 

I have the honour to be, 

Very respectfully, Sir, 

Your most obt. servant, 

WILLIAM H. CRAWFORD. 

The Hon. the Speaker of the House of Representatives. 



5Q0 ilESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

By this Report It appears that there were exported 
from the United States, from the Jst day of October, 
1816, to the 30th daj of September, 1817, of the growth 
and manufacture of the United States, 17,751,376 dol- 
lars worth of flour, and 23,127,614 dollars worth of cot- 
ton, making in these iwo items alone 40,278,990 dollars. 
The whole value of exports for the same year, including 
foreign articles, amounts to 87,671,569 dollars. Of this 
sum 18,707,433 was exported from the port of New- 
York. 

Summary of the value of exports from each State. 



States. 


Domestic. 


Foreign. 


Total. 


New-Hampshire, 


170,599 


26,825 


197,424 


Vermont, 
Massachusetts, 


913,201 
5,908,416 




913,201 

11,987,997 


6,019,571 


Rhode-Island, 


577,911 


3,72,556 


950,467 


Connecticut, 


574,290 


28,949 


604,139 


New-York, 


13,660,533 


5,046,700 


18,70,7433 


New-Jersey, 


5,849 




5,849 




Pennsylvania, 


5,538,003 


3,197,589 


8,735,592 


Delaware, 


38,771 


6,083 


48,454 


Maryland, 


5,887,884 


3,046,046 


8,933,930 


Dist. of Columbia, 


1,689,102 


79,556 


1,768,658 


Virginia, 


5,561,238 


60,204 


5,611,442 


North-Carolina, 


9,55,211 


1,369 


956,580 


South-Carolina, 


9,944,343 


428,270 


10,372,613 


Georgia, 


8,530,831 


259,883 


8,790,714 


Ohio 


7,749 
8,241,254 




7,749 
9402,812 


Louisiana, 


783,558 


Territory of U. S 


. 108,115 




108,115 




Total 


68,343,500 


19,358,069 


87,671,569 



APPENDIX, 

Containing some few Miscellaneous MatterSr omitted in the 
preceding pages. 



OiNCE the Chapter on the Government of the United 
States has been printed oif, it has been suggested as a 
desideratum, that a table of the rates of pay, or wages, 
allowed to our public servants, whether at home or 
abroad, should be given, in order to show what pecuni- 
ary incitements to ambition are applied to the Govern- 
ors, Ambassadors, Judges, and other public functiona- 
ries of the American Commonwealth. The consequen- 
ces of this republican frugahtj, in underpaying our 
government-officers, are, that the Governors and Judges 
of some of the States, are actually employed in prose- 
cuting some other calling, in addition to that of discharg- 
ing the functions of the executive and judicial ; for in- 
stance, in keeping tavern, selHng tenpenny nails, dealing 
in flour, and many similar employments, equally well 
adapted to the sciences of political philosophy and ju- 
risprudence. 

The President of the United States receives a 

salary of $25,000 

The Vice-President of the United States 5,000 

The Secretary of State 5,000 

The Secretary of the Treasury, War, and 

Navy, each ''. 4,000 

The Chief J ustice of the United States 5,000 

The jpuisnS Judges, each 4,000 



502 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

The United States Ambassadors to the first-rate 

European Courts S9,000 

The Judges of the Supreme Court of New-York, 
one oi" tlie most liberally paid States in the 

Union, each 3,500 

The Governor of the State of New-York 7,500 

The Mayor of New- York. 7,000 

The Governor of Rhode-Island 800 

The Governor of Vermont 600 

The Governor of Connecticut 1,000 

The Judges of Connecticut, each 1,000 

It is needless to multiply instances ; in many of the 
States the Governors and Judges are even more scanti- 
ly paid than in Connecticut, Vermont, and Rhode- 
Island ; and, of course, this State parsimony produces 
all the evils pointed out in the Chapter on Government, 
as resulting from the mistaken i^oXicy oi ujidcrpaying i\\e. 
public servants. 

., The pay of the legislators, whether of the United or 
separate States, in the Senates, or Houses of Represen- 
tatives, ranges from two to six dollars a day, during their 
legislative session. If it be really wise to give the le- 
gislators any wages at all, their present stipend seems 
to be fully as disproportionate as that of other public 
servants ; although, doubtless, in some instances, among 
our twenty separate, independent republican sovereign- 
ties, it amounts to a quantum meruit. 

Mr. Wirt makes some very sensible and judicious ob- 
servations, in his Life of Patrick Henry, on the evils 
resulting from the mistaken policy oi underpaying all our 
public servants. Indeed, this beggarly system literally 
starved Henry and Hamilton out of the service of their 
country, and drove them back into their professional 
practice for a morsel of bread. 

The following memoranda, taken from the government 
paper of March Mtii, 1818, will show in what a conti- 
nual flux of mutation men and things are rolled under 
our popular institutions; and it should be remembered 
that tills rtornal rotation is so favourite a feature in our 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 503 

republican polity, that the most stupendous consequen- 
ces are augured from its operation ; so much so, that 
one of our profoundest philosophers very gravely in- 
formed me yesterday, that, " in the course of a few 
years, there would be only two empires in the world, 
the United States and Russia .*''* — 

In the House of Representatives of the United States 
there are now, out of 184 members, only six who were 
members of the Tenth Congress, (1807-8-9,) and have 
continued in the house without intermission. Of those 
who were members of that Congress, and are members 
of the present house, but who have had intermissions of 
service, there are but six or seven. Yet the principle 
of rotation is even more strongly illustrated in the 
Senate of the United States, though intended by the 
Constitution to be the more permanent service. In that 
body there is but one individual who was a Senator in 
the Tenth Congress. In the Senate, at present, eight 
members out of forty were members of the House of 
Representatives in the Tenth Congress; and of the 
present House of Representatives two members were 
in that Congress Senators, both from the State of Ma- 
ryland. 

These facts aiford materials for much reflection on 
the practical operation of our system of government. 

It may be added, that there is no member of the exe- 
cutive department of the government who was then con- 
cerned in the administration of the government. Mr. 
Monroe was then a minister abroad, and Mr. Adams a 
member of the Senate. Of the present Governors of 
the several States there is not one who at that day 
filled the same office. Of the twenty, two were then 
representatives in Congress. 

We are, also, to the full, as fond of variety as of ro- 
tation; for the rate of interest on money, and the cur- 
rent value of the dollar, differ in the several States ; 
for instance, by act of Congress, government receives 
six per cent, on the bonds due to the United States ; 
New- York regulates the rate of interest at seven ; Mas- 
sachusetts ^Csixanda half ^er cent. In New- York 



504 RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

the dollar is valued at eight, in Pennsylvania at seven^ 
in Massachusetts at six shillings. Travellers and 
foreigners reap the richest harvest of inconvenience 
from the want of a uniform standard of weights, mea- 
sures, and values ; and if any rate of interest must be 
imposed on money, the trouble would certainly be much 
less, if our neighbouring States would establish it 
equally throughout their respective dominions. Indeed, 
it is expressly given to Congress, by the Federal Con- 
stitution, to coin money, regulate its value, and fix the 
standard of weights and measures. 

By the late arrivals from Europe, we learn some facts, 
which, had they transpired sooner, would have found u 
place in their appropriate chapters ; as it is, they must 
be thrown, with other miscellanies, into an Appendix. 

The papers laid before the two Houses of Parlia- 
ment, by order of the Prince Regent, on the 27th of 
January, 1818, manifest a great improvement during 
the year 1817, in almost every branch of domestic in- 
dustry, throughout the United Kingdom of Great Bri- 
tain and Ireland. The estimates for the year 1818, 
give the annual government expenditure at fifty-^i^ht 
millions sterling, the revenue dii fifty-two millions, making 
a deficit of six millions. Out of the expenditures, how- 
ever, nearly sixteen millions will be paid to the commis- 
sioners of the sinking fund, for the reduction of the na- 
tional debt; and the supposition is, that the Chancellor 
of the Exchequer, instead of issuing Exchequer bills, or 
raising a loan, will take six millions from the existing 
income of the sinking fund, in order to supply the gap 
between the expenditure and revenue, and leave the re- 
maining ten millions to be applied to the liquidation of 
of the public debt. The expenditure is to be lessened 
from sixty-five to fifty-eight millions, by a reduction of 
the army to its peace establishment, and by the saving 
of interest, on paying off the five and four per cent, 
stocks. 

Treaties have also been concluded between Britain, 
Spain, and Portugal, respecting the abolition of the 
slave-trade ; the Treaty with Spain, is laid before Par- 



RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES. QQq 

liament; that with Portugal, yet remained incomplete, 
because its ratification on either side had not been ex- 
changed. By a proclamation, dated Madrid, December, 
1817, the King of Spain prohibits from the day of the 
date of the proclamation, all his subjects, both in the 
Peninsula and America, from going to buy negroes on 
the coast of Africa, north of the line; and from the 
30th of May, 1 820, a similar prohibition is extended to 
those parts of the coast of Africa, south of the line. 

The rumour of the day, (25th March, 1818,) is, that 
our government have determined to declare v^^ar against 
Spain. Before they plunge the nation into hostilities, 
it well becomes the wisdom of the Senate to pause and 
ponder, whether or not the powers of Europe will be 
inclined to sit tamely by, and see the United States strip 
the nerveless and impotent Spaniard of the Floridas, 
Cuba, and Mexico, and thus endanger, or render useless, 
all the West-India possessions of every European sove- 
reignty ; and whether or not America, with only ten 
millions of people, scattered over two millions of square 
miles, is at this moment prepared to encounter the coa- 
lition of crowns in Europe, with their embattled veterans 
at leisure for any new enterprise, weary of peace, pro- 
cinct for war, and looking with a jealous and fearful eye 
upon the rapidly growing strength of our giant repub- 
lic ? fs the impending rupture with Spain one of the 
first-fruits of western predominance; and are the Atlan- 
tic States to purchase a President from Kentucky^ at the 
price of all the blood and treasure that may be expended 
in a conflict with universal Europe ? 



> 



FfNlS. 



ERRATUM. 

In p. 240, for " six hundred and forty thousand,^' read "sixty four 
millions of acres." 



lb^^'?0 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



011 290 148 6 




























■ V*. Mill fcSh.^. **■? 










